Sharing an insightful article featured in Issue 7 of Convo magazine, authored by Joanna Atetwe. Joanna is a Project Management graduate from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) in Kenya and currently serves as a project assistant with ADRA Kenya. Her passion for writing is deeply intertwined with her interests in climate change and nature. Through her articles, Joanna strives to illuminate pressing societal issues and advocate for positive change.
Before I begin, I’d like to say that the views here are entirely my own – Joanna.
An article I recently read was titled, THE RISE OF SINGLE LONELY MEN, you should have seen the shock on my face. Based on a Pew Research Center study in the USA on men, it may have seemed far from home, but the African, Kenyan reality is more likely the same. The staggering number of men on social media platforms, who are lonely and bitter, is all the proof you need.
We are here to talk about the pressure to man up, I want to tell you how not to “Man Up” and instead begin to soften and be more sensitive to the people around you and yourself.
Today’s woman continues to show us all, that more than just being empowered economically, she has been working on her mental and emotional growth. She has been working to understand her value as a woman, especially as a high-value woman. And with the woman being hypergamous, she cannot connect herself to anyone who has not reached this level of awareness as she has. This is where the guys are falling behind.
Beyond, romance and relationships, men in today’s society have been forced to focus on the monetary aspect of life more than everything. This is why they are stunted mentally and emotionally. Men have no community and no support system. The ‘boys’ that spend weekends on end together doing all manner of things, cannot be the shoulder to lean on in times of depression. Men need to check on each other, emotionally and mentally, with a rising rate of male suicides in the country it is highly imperative. I think men need to stop feeling like being vulnerable with each other is a sign of weakness and a way of losing one’s power. If Brene’ Brown has taught the world anything, it’s that vulnerability is power!
Men need to collectively do the work to learn to build and maintain relationships with each other and to support each other, beyond the casual pat on the back.
In many ways, men have indeed been socialized, more like primed, for loneliness and this is why even the connections they have with their fellow men, are mainly situational. Because of this affinity to loneliness, they consciously remove themselves from creating or pursuing intimate relationships with each other and sometimes with women as well. In my opinion, the skills needed to build and maintain relationships among men are similar to those needed to be with women. And maybe men have become so stunted in relationships because of the lack of practice.
Men need to collectively do the work to learn to build and maintain relationships with each other and to support each other, beyond the casual pat on the back. It will require openness and vulnerability, which are foreign to men.
In support of men’s exodus from this life of loneliness, here are 5 tips on how men can create and nurture relationships with anyone.
1. Cultivate Healthy, mutually beneficial friendships.
Everyone needs friends. Friends to lean on and share the burden with. These friends need to be the ones we can lean on when stuff hits the fan. I recently watched a video on BBC Africa’s page about @rixpoet explaining how his male friends pulled him out of the dump that is depression. They came to be with him, helped with chores, and took turns checking in on him. My heart went out to the men who have no friends like that. Men who have never experienced care and concern from their friends or even partners or parents. And I think this is one of the things they require, men who also understand the pressure that comes with having to man up.
Friends who are not just people you meet up with to have fun, but people who will notice when you are not okay and be there with you until you get back on your feet. That’s what healthy male friendships look like in my mind.
In today’s society, Gen Z’s trying to break out of that cycle. To be the man that is unashamed to say, this made me feel small and weak or hurt me. They are slowly bringing a millennium-age practice to its knees.
Understanding that in reality, things are different is also part of this mental picture. As much as it seems hard to find this, it is out there, a community where you will be seen, heard, loved as you are and respected exists. Male or Female, we all need someone to lean on (cue Bill Withers).
2. Practicing vulnerability with the people who care for them.
Men have been taught since they were young that opening up about pain or weakness is a bad thing. That to feel like you are in pain and burdened mentally or emotionally is wrong. I see that every day, as men drag themselves daily to become the men that society expects them to be. While it is admirable that despite all these pressures they can become just exactly what is expected of them, they are left with holes and scars so deep. They become burdened with anger, resentment, hate, and bitterness that weigh on them for years and some go to the grave with them still latched on them. These burdens have been passed down from father to son for years.
In today’s society, Gen Z’s trying to break out of that cycle. To be the man that is unashamed to say, this made me feel small and weak or hurt me. They are slowly bringing a millennium-age practice to its knees and are being met with resistance from toxic masculinity movements that advocate for shoving these feelings down their throats and moving on.
Another misconception that not just men have been served with is that negative emotions are bad and should be discarded and hated. The truth is the opposite, these feelings of fear, pain, and anxiety are signals to show us what needs to be done in our lives. They are signals to help guide our behaviour. Men need to hear more, from those who care about them, that it’s okay for them to open up about being sad and anxious or feeling depressed. In this big, scary and lonely world, they need now more than ever to have room for vulnerability as well.
Read: Rebalancing The Scales: Understanding The Overlooked Challenges Of The Boy Child
3. Therapy and Counselling
In our African society, the only person who knew your problems was yourself and your god. To have to ask anyone to go speak to a stranger about their struggles is an impossible feat. However, there are many testimonies of the importance and success of therapy. It works and it helps. Therapy can be a great way for men to practice vulnerability if there is no one in their lives that they feel they can trust with their secrets struggles, and, feelings. Therapy gives room not just for being vulnerable but also a good place to get tools for cultivating relationships, and friendships, and for personal development as well.
4. Group activities away from alcohol, drugs, and anything that will distract you from having a real conversation.
5. Allow themselves to feel and stop pushing everything down. It makes for an aggressive and resentful mind, a person whom no one wants to be around.
This goes back to vulnerability, but with oneself. We never get anywhere until we are honest and true to ourselves. Unless we can look at ourselves in the mirror tears and all, and show compassion to ourselves as we face the things that shatter us inside, we become shadows of ourselves. More men need to be okay with finding healthy ways to release aggression and pain. Whether it’s through activities like hiking or working out. These simple acts greatly impact their mental health in the long run.
I hope that more and more men realize that the life of the lone wolf, though appealing, isn’t all there is for them. They deserve community, love, and care. They deserve not to have to always “be the man”, they can lean on others too.
I support men and the need for them to be allowed to be human, to have emotions, and to want those needs met.
I love hearing that we are human too, we tend to forget. Life changing article.