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?

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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.

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mewpmewp2 38 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 20 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.