What Ever Became of Men's Groups?

[haha]

In my home town the older men get together for coffee once a week and talk manly things. Much like UncleMick's Slidell coffee shop. Men also get together to hunt.

I used to love elk hunting. But that is heavy duty sh*t! at least on the Peninsula where I did most of mine it was an exhausting thing that really isn't for older guys, unless you train all year to be able to do it.

The other thing about hunting is guns. You really should be concentrating on the guns, not male bonding. I finally quit when I determined that too many of them didn't have the same safety standards that I have.

I had some good friends at the range near where I used to live-but again I think one pretty much had to be aware of and respect the somewhat restricted emotional range of these encounters.

My favorite companions were Indians. They have the most interesting indirect humor. It takes while to catch on, but then on you are fully entertained. OTOH, it takes some adjusting for the average hard charging white guy to reach this point!

Ha

 

[haha]

Ha, I'm pretty surethey have Elks, Masons, Knights of Columbus and, heck, maybe even the International Order of Odd Fellows in Seattle. You're certainly old enough to belong at one of these places, no? Or do you not like knowing the secret handshake?

I always figured I'd join the Stonecutters when I get over 65.

I'm an Eagle, ***** pocus and all. And you are right, we have Odd Fellows too. I should qualify easily for that one!

Ha

 

[unclemick]

I used to love elk hunting. But that is heavy duty sh*t! at least on the Peninsula where I did most of mine it was an exhausting thing that really isn't for older guys, unless you train all year to be able to do it.

The other thing about hunting is guns. You really should be concentrating on the guns, not male bonding. I finally quit when I determined that too many of them didn't have the same safety standards that I have.

I had some good friends at the range near where I used to live-but again I think one pretty much had to be aware of and respect the somewhat restricted emotional range of these encounters.

My favorite companions were Indians. They have the most interesting indirect humor. It takes while to catch on, but then on you are fully entertained. OTOH, it takes some adjusting for the average hard charging white guy to reach this point!

Ha

It was always the poker game/bourbon/bonding the night before - it's a wonder some made it out the next day.

Elk in Colorado.

Offshore fishing the rigs in Louisiana. One group I knew at the plant went thru two programs(Apollo/Shuttle), two boats, father to son charter change and a number of divorces/new wives over 30 yrs. Pretty much the same guys except for those who died/retired and left the area.

heh heh heh - doughnut shops are cheaper and safer.

 

[Marquette]

I never realized I had it so tough as a guy.

Can I get a hug or something?

 

[lazygood4nothinbum]

maybe something here? Meetups near Seattle, WA - Meetup.com

 

[Notmuchlonger]

I never realized I had it so tough as a guy.

Can I get a hug or something?

I love you man. Group hug..

 

[SteveR]

Interesting topic and one that is relevent at critical times in a man's life.

Divorce

Death of a spouse

Loss of a job

Loss of a child


These are critical events in anyone's life and they all involve some form of loss. Loss is difficult to just walk away from as it affects many aspects of your life and unless you find a way to deal with each loss individually they will become additive and can create some pretty nasty psyco-social issues if not addressed.

There are a number of support groups out there for each of these areas. The more common ones relate to loss of a spouse or family member through death and these forums tend to be very heavily female predominate with a small but vocal male presence.

It seems most guys either don't take the initiative to see if there is a place to get help or don't want to appear weak and ask for help. The smart ones do both and are way ahead in getting through their loss adjustment period (aka mourning).

Most of the guys I run across who have experienced a significant loss don't like to talk about it so it gets hard to get them to open up to a frank discussion on the topic. It is seen as weakness to open up about emotional issues. Which is strange since most guys don't feel the same way about asking for help in other areas...auto mechanics, home repairs, gardening, or sports trivia. But don't expect much of a discussion when it comes to personal emotional issues. That is far too much raw nerve to expose to some guy who would enjoy making fun of the weakness and causing the man to retreat into his turtle shell.

Guys are like turtles. We carry around a shell of great weight and bulk that protects us from outsiders. Even our wives and SOs don't know everything because we hold back to some degree. Rare is the guy who spills it all to DW. If he exists then bless him but he is a loner among men.

We teach our children to be competetive because we see life as a very tough and nasty place where special fine-tuned skills are required to be a "winner". We try to cultivate these skills while dismissing emotion other than aggression. Team sports are about winning and losing. Despite the sloppy and half hearted saying "you are all winners if when you lose games" what it felt is disgrace and embarassment for the losing team. The good parents hide it well; the not so good parents shove it in their kid's face. I have been to a lot of kids sports events over the years and the parents are a huge problem with their kids and other team member self esteem. Most of this is guy driven.

Is it no wonder guys retract into their shell when faced with an emotional issue? Guys don't typically discuss deep emotional issues. Close friends may discusss hard facts and possible plans but rarely get into the emotional side of it. "How do you feel" is not a phase common among most male groups. "What are you going to do about X or Y ?" Is.

We do the best we can despite the barage of emotionally charged handgrenades tossed at us by our DW or SOs. "Do I look fat in this dress?", "Am I the prettiest girl at the party?", "What are you thinking about?", etc. There are no right answers to these questions and we know it but every time they come up we are forced to lie or pay the emotional price. We learn to avoid pain quickly.

We just want to win at life and be left alone to lick our wounds. The question "How do your feel?" has no answer that makes sence for us. We don't allow ourselves to get in touch with our feelings on a daily basis so this question is meaningless to us. We are either OK or Not. If Not, the we will work it out ourselves. It is our karma as men. You can't help because you don't understand what it means to not know how you feel.

Men solve problems. Women work on issues. Men can't solve issues because they aren't true problems. An issue is something to be worked out verbally by a woman. Men don't do this and we need to be better at just listening rather than trying to solve a non-problem.

With that I am out of here.

 

[chinaco]

Mens' Club. Hmmm... Isn't that the local watering hole (pub/bar).

Hobbies seem to be reasons to congregate.

I have family and friends that ride motorcycles. Some of them belong to clubs that ride their bikes to meet for lunch or breakfast weekly and plan short group trips on the weekend.

 

[ladelfina]

SteveR.. great post! I am only intermittently attuned to the subsonic emotional life of my DH. I ask how he is and he's "ok". I ask what he's thinking about and get maybe a sentence.. not a lot of embroidery or explication or background. I'd like to think that I give him space to express, but it doesn't seem like that's what he really wants to do. When he does open up it is usually about "things" and rarely general feelings or frustrations.. or rather, he'll tell me his frustration with X, Y and Z, and it stops there.



I kind of agree with the final remarks about problems vs. issues.. but then I think of most of my favorite books and how they are written by men and how very dense with description and emotional subtlety they can be. I often find female authors more predictable and less challenging (except for maybe Joyce Carol Oates who I used to loathe -- nor do I seek her out now because she's on the depressing side, a little too close to the bone/nerve).

So I think it's giving men short shrift to assume that a more nuanced emotional realm is terra incognita for them and will always be so. It just may not be up for direct public consumption.

 

[brewer12345]

Wow, Steve, did I see a lot of myself in that, although I never did the hyper-competitive team sports thing (not in my make-up). Very insightful.

I think Ha has in mind non-sexual companionship, rather than "sharing", no? I think that is a tough nut to crack, as things can be misinterpreted and many men's time together centers around a specific activity (fishing, hunting, etc.).

 

[lazygood4nothinbum]

over the years i've had close friends both male & female & both gay & str8 and i never found much difference among them in their level of introspection based upon gender or sexuality.

i've a good male friend who doesn't talk much at all about feelings but who speaks and acts with more integrity than most, obviously indicating that he is pretty well in touch with what "feels right".

i've female friends who spend a lot of time talking about their feelings but when you confront them on specifics they ball up like an armadillo, refusing to face what is obvious.

do not be fooled by honesty. an open flood gate can divert more water faster than a dam can accumulate it.

"sometimes it is easier to see more clearly into the liar than into the man who tells the truth. truth, like light, blinds. falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enchances every object."~~albert camus

 

[Fireup2020]

We are just different creatures! They (men) are not women with more body fur! I prefer the company of men - because they do not get all touchy feely with their emotions (I am cool with mine - and do not feel the need to share with all on a regular basis).

 

[Grizz]

I remember being at a lounge some years ago with 5 or 6 buddies. After a few beers and some pool one of the guys started getting sort of emotional and talking about his girlfriend that had recently left him and how much he loved her etc. etc. One of the other fellows promptly grabbed a nearby bottle of window cleaner, sprayed it in his face once and told him to shut up.

The "victim" spent some time rubbing his sore, red, vinegar filled eyes, but understood quickly that nobody wanted to hear about his emotions so he did indeed shut up about it. His eyes stayed red for quite a while, and everyone, including him had a good laugh about it. Nobody thought any less of him for his emotional outburst, but when you are a guy it is understood that you don't talk about those sorts of things in that sort of environment.

 

[Sarah in SC]

Grizz, that is a tough crowd, but I understand the sentiment!
While I wouldn't spray window cleaner on someone, I might prefer not to get involved in these sorts of messy emotional scenes. I am probably closer to Steve's "work on problems, not issues" and Fireup's no touchy-feely stuff. This is how I felt when I started reading men are from mars...I'm pretty sure I'm from Mars.

But DH has poker, and is getting geared up for building a "man house" out back so he can host supper club meetings (what they call boy's night). I go out once every week or so for dinner with a group of girls, and we don't talk all mushy either, thank god.

 

[Moemg]

Interesting topic and one that is relevent at critical times in a man's life.

Divorce

Death of a spouse

Loss of a job

Loss of a child


These are critical events in anyone's life and they all involve some form of loss. Loss is difficult to just walk away from as it affects many aspects of your life and unless you find a way to deal with each loss individually they will become additive and can create some pretty nasty psyco-social issues if not addressed.

There are a number of support groups out there for each of these areas. The more common ones relate to loss of a spouse or family member through death and these forums tend to be very heavily female predominate with a small but vocal male presence.

It seems most guys either don't take the initiative to see if there is a place to get help or don't want to appear weak and ask for help. The smart ones do both and are way ahead in getting through their loss adjustment period (aka mourning).

Most of the guys I run across who have experienced a significant loss don't like to talk about it so it gets hard to get them to open up to a frank discussion on the topic. It is seen as weakness to open up about emotional issues.

Steve , You hit the nail on the head . Several years ago my SO & I were each going thru one of those issues at the same time . I had lost a child and he had lost his job . I immediatedly went to grief counseling were I yelled ,screamed and cried . He stuffed the issue inside until it came boiling out . My ex husband who's son it was has never really dealed with it . He shoved it in and ended up in Intensive Care close to death . We all have to get those intense feelings out someway or they keep on building .

 

[W2R]

Like most people here I have experienced my share of these critical events, but really never sought out support groups or others to share with about them. For some reason I haven't felt much need to do that and in a sense, it seems like an intrusion upon a precious and very private memory.

That doesn't mean that I don't get things out in the open. I do post pretty openly on forums, probably moreso than some others. But don't expect me to say everything. For me, some things and some feelings are best worked through in other, more private ways.

The camaraderie of my friends and on several forums does help in an indirect sense. I feel the support and that strengthens me in general, even though they may not be aware of the specifics. I think we each work through grief in our own ways, but sometimes we won't SEE someone working through it since they may have a different approach.

 

[haha]

Interesting topic and one that is relevent at critical times in a man's life.

Divorce

Death of a spouse

Loss of a job

Loss of a child


These are critical events in anyone's life and they all involve some form of loss. Loss is difficult to just walk away from as it affects many aspects of your life and unless you find a way to deal with each loss individually they will become additive and can create some pretty nasty psyco-social issues if not addressed.

Excellent post Steve, and it addresses much of what I am talking about. I have a brother whose wife is very sick right now. They like most corporate worker couples with no children have not always been able to make solid support networks on the ground wherever they happen to have been transferred. It's a relaionshp much like what many on these boards have described- they are each other's best friends, and other than far off family and geographically spread friendships that they have maintained over the years, they are more or less alone except for one another.

Not a good situation when trouble strikes. And as some of the comments on this thread have made clear, when a man hits an emotional wall a lot of his barroom drinking-fishing- stamp collecting male friends are as useless as teats on a boar. And for married men, it is not always easy to have women friends- not couple friends who are really your wife's frieds, but female friends who are yours. Not hard to understand- when you get to know a woman she often become more and more appealing to you, thus more of a potential problem in our sometimes strict version of married life.

I think from reading suggestions on this thread that what I want to do is two-pronged. Find a church that I can still deal with, and pitch in there. And also, find a men's group with male political issues on the table. I really don't want to wait until I have another personal crisis myself, but rather join in now to build for everyone's well being.

Years ago during the height of the AIDS crisis among gay men I became aware that they had built something that most heterosexual men had not. They were politically effective in advocating for their cause; and they were personally effective as groups binding themselves together to help one another.

Heterosexual men are at the stage where women were in the mid-fifties, before some leaders helped them to see that all was not well.

I should probably add that I need warm social interaction when all is well too. I guess some do not need it or even want it.

Ha

 

[brewer12345]

Deeply un-politically correct sentiments in some ways, ha, but I can't say I disagree. I guess as far as the younger generation goes, its not a simple matter to change the way you interact with other men. This is complicated by the tendency of society to further cement you into accepted roles as you age. I don't really see how this could change.

 

[Notmuchlonger]

I feel everyone is different. Going around painting a gender,race or nationality with broad paint strokes is wrong.

 

[haha]

I feel everyone is different. Going around painting a gender,race or nationality with broad paint strokes is wrong.

Shouldn't you throw in religious affiliation among the things-never-to-be-discussed?

 

[Moemg]

Like most people here I have experienced my share of these critical events, but really never sought out support groups or others to share with about them. For some reason I haven't felt much need to do that and in a sense, it seems like an intrusion upon a precious and very private memory.

Everyone is different ! When my husband died I went to so many grief groups I could have written reviews of them . This one is good but stale donuts . This one has too many weepers but the coffee is starbucks . This one the leader is a little freaky but the people are nice .

 

[Moemg]

I think from reading suggestions on this thread that what I want to do is two-pronged. Find a church that I can still deal with, and pitch in there. And also, find a men's group with male political issues on the table. I really don't want to wait until I have another personal crisis myself, but rather join in now to build for everyone's well being.

.

Ha

Great idea Ha !

 

[Notmuchlonger]

Shouldn't you throw in religious affiliation among the things-never-to-be-discussed?

I never said things shouldn't be discussed. Just threw out my opinion like everyone else.

 

[FinanceDude]

I literally have shared 99.99% of my grief and issues with DW. I think the reason we clicked so long ago was we both lost our moms as kids, and we ended up working through that many years later, and now we are comfortable talking about nearly anything..............when my sister died 18 months ago, without DW I would have been toast......it was that devastating to me............

 

[Milton]

Perhaps the economy will promote men's support groups. Apparently they (we) have lots to complain about: The Slump: It's a Guy Thing.