Luckily my company paid for it, but I went to an extremely fancy restaurant tonight. Damn I do not belong in that sort of place. From a cultural perspective I mean. I feel like Daryl Hannah’s Madison in Splash with the lobster.

Those people are not my people. And I do not like being fawned over. The food wasn’t even that good. Mainly, it just had a butter overdose and too much salt. Shit, I can get that at TGI Friday’s for a lot cheaper.

It’s weird what men are told we “must” be like vs. what most of us are actually like.

We are told that men think about sex seven times a minute and that all we care about is sex. Reality: Even when I was an adolescent or young adult, I thought about sex like once or twice a day. It varies, but most men are fairly similar.

We are told that men are rapists by default, that only society restrains us from our base urges. Reality: I’ve never even had the slightest desire to rape or assault anyone, even in situations where I absolutely 100% could’ve gotten away with it with guaranteed zero consequences. Most men are about the same; only a small percentage of men commit the vast majority of assaults.

We are told that men have no capacity for empathy and that only women have empathy and care for others. Reality: Men and women are probably about the same here, though women often seem to have almost no empathy for men (as men experience it anyway) because they feel they must be this way to keep away the creeps (even though it makes creep interactions the only ones you’re likely to have).

We are told that we should “open up” and “reveal our feelings.” Reality: Nearly all the time, this is used against us by romantic partners or by family. It’s extremely predictable. So we do not.

We are told that any approach of any woman anywhere at any time for any reason is harassment and always undesired. Reality: Most normal women are fine with a polite approach and taking a “no” for a no.

So men are told constantly how horrible and undesirable we are and regardless of that accepted and routine degradation, we are expected to “man up” and act like robots. Is it any surprise that there’s a huge male mental health crisis and that many of the core tenets of this sort of “all masculinity is definitionally toxic” liberalism is being rejected of late?