Women seem to have this special blind spot for men. It's all "empathy this" and "acceptance that," until it's a man. When they see a weak man, what they feel is disgust. And in their disgust, they try to find reasons to invalidate the suffering. He brought it on himself, or he's choosing to suffer because he refuses to open up, or women are suffering worse, etc.

I think this is an intuitive reaction. It's like being grossed out by dog poop on the ground. You feel the disgust first, and although an evolutionary psychology explanation for that disgust may be true (eg, "you have evolved disgust for dog poop to prevent illness and infection) intellectualizing it further would be totally superfluous. People experience the proximate cause for these sort of evolved behaviors, even when they intellectually know better. If you think you're above this sort of reaction, try "choosing" to be attracted to an 80 year old woman.

It starts in college, having lived through those first couple sentences verbatim. There is a group / pack mentality around this behavior as well, but I'm not really educated on psychology enough to describe it further.

I have had similar experience in my personal life in multiple relationships, including my wife. I've learned to never complain about anything in front of women and just white knuckle whatever difficulties I get at any given moment. This approach helped me secure more respect and better overall response from women. Showing weakness triggers the disgust response that you mentioned. It could be masked under pity, but you lose respect quickly. Working through my issues with male friends is more productive for me.

The only woman who actually cares for me has been my mother.

This is an interesting musing but does not offer possible solutions. Men supporting men comes to my mind as an obvious category.

what is a "weak" man, in your usage here?

what are non-anecdotal things that support the idea, "When [women] see a weak man, what they feel is disgust."

do men demonstrate the same "disgust" when _they_ "see a weak man"? why or why not?

> try "choosing" to be attracted to an 80 year old woman

Not a great example. Elderly women may not be your thing, but nursing homes are apparently hotbeds of STDs. There's someone out there for everyone.

[dead]

Someone hurt you; I'm sorry for that. But, you're making sweeping generalizations about ~50% of the world's behavior and, while this may be your perception, I think you could use some genuine therapy to help w/the struggles you clearly are facing.

E: I am so baffled how the HN community could be so very anti-female here that they would advocate for this sort of commentary by downvoting.

Nah, that's simply not true in the general case.

There are subcultures in which men showing vulnerability are considered bad. But in those subcultures, men are just as mean to other men as women are. And women embracing this are usually not very "empathy this" and "acceptance that" towards anybody.

There is definitely a part of feminist culture is openly aggressive toward men in general while being "empathy this" towards women. But they are usually way more aggressive towards cocky men than weak men.

No offence, but comment seems like incel podcast gobbledygook