| I don't think there's any redefinition here, and it's exactly this dichotomy that makes this a big issue. Vulnerability is indeed not "a good thing", but the issue is that the struggle to constantly keep yourself invulnerable at all times is a "worse thing", leading to many stress-related issues (amongst other problems). So the modern psychological advice, as I understand it, is to find particular people, spaces and opportunities where we can let our guard down, even at the risk of being open to attack, because the alternative is worse. There's a stoic quote I love: > our ideal wise man feels his troubles, but overcomes them - Seneca, Moral letters to Lucilius/Letter 9
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Let... The way I see it, if you never let yourself be vulnerable, you can never fully feel your troubles, and you cannot fully overcome them. |
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| ▲ | Joeboy an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | > Is this something that generally goes beyond school? The things that make you vulnerable change depending on what year and situation you're in. I can very much get behind the idea that you should consider whether your legacy sense of what makes you vulnerable is relevant to your current circumstances. I'm not so much behind the "freely dispense the rope people will use to hang you" version. | | |
| ▲ | mewpmewp2 an hour ago | parent [-] | | There's a lot of abstraction in this thread, but I would like to hear specifics. What are the exact vulnerabilities that we are talking about? From my side I guess I can say I frequently feel like impostor type of things or that I'm not doing enough. I won't mention that at work, but I definitely share those feelings to my partner. I would hate not being able to share something like that to my partner for instance. I wonder what others are talking about? | | |
| ▲ | Joeboy an hour ago | parent [-] | | When I was at school (and in the 20th century generally) admitting to anything outside traditional masculinity / heterosexuality made you vulnerable to physical / verbal attack. Which remains the case for a lot of people in the 21st century. If they want to be loud and proud then good for them, but I can understand it if they prefer to keep it quiet. Whereas, at least around me, now, I think you can come out as gay without too much concern for your physical safety. Conversely, at my school you could be as overtly homophobic as you wanted with no consequences, whereas now you should probably be a lot more cautious if you harbour homophobic sentiments. Talking about partners in particular, I've had partners I felt fairly safe sharing anything (most things anyway) with, and I've also had partners who would mine our conversations for any kind of viable ammunition. Which led to me being a bit more careful what I said. We can perhaps agree the first kind of relationship is better. | | |
| ▲ | mewpmewp2 40 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Yeah, I think the 2nd type of relationship is much worse than no relationship, I'd say the problem there wouldn't be with someone being vulnerable, it's the problem with the relationship... Yeah, during school it's difficult since you are forced together with potentially toxic people. As an adult you can choose at least in personal life and to an extent workplace, although sometimes workplace can also be difficult to get right. I'd 100% rather be alone than around people who might judge or use in someway against me anything about me. It would feel internally disgusting for me to think that someone might be trying to get at my expense and that I'm not around people who are there to try and build each other. What a waste of time. | | |
| ▲ | Joeboy 22 minutes ago | parent [-] | | The thing is, what you want is specifically a relationship where you are not vulnerable. If you're not worried about the consequences of the things you say, there's no actual vulnerability. You're just adapting to a safe situation. In which case good for you and you partner. | | |
| ▲ | mewpmewp2 2 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Ultimately, what I'm trying to do though, is to build myself such a life that if my internal principles are good, I shouldn't have to worry in most cases about what I'm saying since I want to believe in my principles. I want my interactions with people to be win-win, and I want to surround myself with people who want that too. If someone displays lose-win behavior, I should always naturally have the "moral" upper-hand assuming other people around me are reasonable. And if none of the people around me are reasonable, I should go and find the reasonable people. People seem to be romanticizing the term "vulnerable" though. I think it would be important to go deeper into this. What does "vulnerability" exactly mean. I have had depression, anxiety diagnosed in the past and addictions and other similar issues, are these vulnerabilities because they may interfere with me acting optimally or are they vulnerabilities because they provide someone a tool to try and get at me if they so wanted because they think there's stigma around those labels to influence others to think worse of me? |
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| ▲ | ben_w 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Is this about other people being immature or looking to abuse us? Is this something that generally goes beyond school? Yes to both. Psychopaths do to everyone what everyone does to out-groups, and we're all someone else's out-group. | | |
| ▲ | akimbostrawman 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | You really don't need to reach that far. As a man if you are too often vulnerable, too much, for the wrong reasons or at the wrong time you will loose the respect of your partner and soon after there love. | | |
| ▲ | mewpmewp2 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I guess that would depend on the partner? And what do you mean by vulnerability in that context that would make her lose respect? And what do you mean by wrong times or reasons? | | |
| ▲ | zozbot234 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Most people seek emotional support, resilience and trustworthiness from their partner, and being excessively "vulnerable" can definitely hinder you from playing that role effectively. This is what can sometimes be experienced as a loss of respect. What you really want is to show a mere modicum of emotional vulnerability that your partner can then have some opportunity to empathize with, and not view you as overly brittle. But not more than that. | | |
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| ▲ | squigz 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Not everyone's partner is that shallow. | | |
| ▲ | akimbostrawman 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Exceptions don't invalidate the rule. Everybody thinks there partner isn't right until they are. | | |
| ▲ | squigz 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Your experiences don't validate the rule, either. | | |
| ▲ | akimbostrawman 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Right I forgot we are on HN where we even need a scientific paper on "do women like weak vulnerable or strong confident men?" because nobody ever goes outside. | | |
| ▲ | zozbot234 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I bet that people who advocate for showing "vulnerability" are modeling this as a facet of strong confidence, and not opposed to it. But the thing is, if you really have reached the level of effortless confidence where that's a realistic prospect, you won't need that advice! You'll just be able to intuitively calibrate how much "vulnerability" to allow others, as a direct outcome of that strong emotional stability. Most people would probably be better off being told to be a little bit more guarded about their emotions. | |
| ▲ | TRiG_Ireland 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I think you're working too hard to be pithy and are therefore forgetting to actually communicate. | |
| ▲ | mewpmewp2 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | What are some things that make a man seem vulnerable? | |
| ▲ | squigz 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Not really, it's just that most of us are adults who have experiences with healthy adult relationships. "Is my partner going to leave me if I display emotional vulnerability" is not really a concern in healthy, adult relationships. | | |
| ▲ | vintermann 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Differences between men and women are down to the situation. Sometimes the long situation. When a situation has lasted a long time, it sticks, and turns into culture, gender roles. When a situation has lasted a really long time, it sticks hard, and becomes biology. But most of the time, it's neither culture or biology which decides what men and women do. It's the immediate situation. And even if you think it's culture, even if you think it's biology, if you don't like how men are (or how women are) you have to start with changing the immediate situation. The others will follow - eventually. | |
| ▲ | akimbostrawman 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | An actual adult realizes the real world differences between "should not" and "will not". | | |
| ▲ | squigz 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | I'm not sure what this is trying to say? Can you elaborate please? | | |
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| ▲ | andersonpico 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | divorced dad take | | |
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| ▲ | mewpmewp2 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I think some concrete examples would be great. I think we need some examples of vulnerability too. Is vulnerability just about showing your actual emotional state? E.g. if you are depressed, anxious or nervous? |
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