Depressed as a Man

Kamex · Raven Joined: Sep 03, 2006 Age: 21 Posts: 102

No matter how many times I tell myself it is all lies, all negative propaganda, if one is told something enough times by enough people, and there are no people around aside from one's self to contradict these opinions, the opinions slowly become progressively more true in one's mind.

I remember when I still went to our Unitarian Youth group, and we had a sex education con, and it was one our particular church had organized. One idea, which I had contributed significantly to, was to have boxes to drop notes in in each bathroom. These notes were to contain anonymous questions relating to sex and reproduction and were to be answered at the end of the con by a lady who apparently gave sex education classes (I knew this person, and disliked her because I alone felt she was sexist). When it came time to answer the questions, she alternated between questions in the girls' and the guys' boxes. Every question, without exception, asked by the women was, in my mind and the minds of everyone else in the room, a mature, constructive question. By contrast, nearly every male question was something to the effect of "I like boobies. Hehehe!!!". The contrast was so great that by the time we were about a fourth into the questions, people in the room began laughing before the male questions were even read. The lady who was reading and answering the questions had a smile on her face that said "Yep, that's those men. I know I'm right." I was probably the only one that didn't find any of this funny, at least, I didn't notice anyone else. I felt very embarrassed, listening to these, because it made me feel like if the results were this consistant, certainly some of it was affecting me, and that meant I was not smart.

Even worse was when she got to my question, "Which birth control methods involve the destruction of an already fertilized embryo, and which don't". I would never have dared ask such a question if this were not anonymous - anti-abortion, especially to a degree as extreme as mine, is highly frowned upon in the Unitarian Universalist Church. It is seen as disrespectful of a woman's right to do what she chooses with her own body. It is seen as men attempting to force the scary and painful procedure of childbirth on a woman who is not interested in undergoing the experience. I could go into my rebuttals to these statements, but that isn't important here. It isn't even important whether I'm right or wrong in my stance.

What is important is when the question was brought up, there was so much disgust and hate among everyone in the room that the general consensis was that whoever this was, it was someone who was a horrible person who did not properly respect women and did not belong in anything UU-related. She answered the question, but her answer was very half-hearted and bitter sounding. No one seemed to complain about the way she handled it. I don't even remember what the actual content of the answer was, as my mind was elsewhere.

And I looked around the room, and thought of a story I had heard about a crazy person who had believed they were a tiger for over 20 years. We know such a belief is crazy because they are the only one who believes in it. In the same way, was I a bad person for thinking what I did, in spite of the fact that I did not think I was, when everyone felt differently? Was I out of line to ask such a question? Truly, if any of the questions that day written by men had been stupid and immature, mine was the worst, and I was very sorry I ever made it. It was part of the reason I began distancing myself from UUism, because I no longer really felt accepted there.

Of course, it wasn't UUism that was the problem. There have been other things too. I recall one of my teacher's in around 7th grade telling the class how "I don't know why I even bother grading boys' papers. They always fail anyway.". I remember at the time feeling this was not an accurate or appropriate comment. The other day, however, Mom told me how she had read a statistic that showed men do not get as good grades as women do. I am forced to conclude, based on this and other evidence, that I am not intelligent.

So if I am not meant for intelligence, what am I good for? Sex, apparently. I can't seem to get enough of it. Sure, women like sex, but as a man, I apparently really like it. No matter how badly I want to spend my days reading Harry Potter or studying my computer book, pretty much every day, I end up devoting a period of time an activity that is never going to go anywhere, because there will never be anyone who would want to share that time with me, forcing me instead to worship photos of people who are better than me, and knowing that what I am doing is a typical "male" thing, confirming even deeper that they are right about me.

Of course, wanting sex isn't really all that useful to anyone, certainly not to women. I heard about a year ago about the possibility that we might eventually enable lesbian couples to have children, but not the other way around, because a man cannot have a child. This means that eventually, men will no longer be necessary anyway. I remember learning what a baby shower is. For men who do not know, it is apparently a way for women to share celebration in the magical ability they have to produce another human being. Though I would never wish such an experience on myself, I am jealous of this ability, because I do not see an equivelent replacement for it on my end.

Men are ugly and dirty. I remember watching an episode of a sitcom (I cannot remember which), where a man had the privilege of his girlfriend spending all her time at his place completely naked. At the end of the episode, the guy decided he wanted to be naked too, and it was explained that this was not ok, because men look terrible naked. In World of Warcraft, women's breasts are inflated to ridiculous proportions, but men's crotches are flattened. This is because a larger male crotch, or even the presence of one at all, is considered indecent and innapropriate. I do not like playing a character who has been altered in such an extreme way in order to make them acceptable, but then, I don't really like playing a character who's wearing barely anything at all because it is not realistic, so it evens out. In spite of my views, I find myself, in real life, wearing the loosest pants I can find because I find it shameful and embarrassing.

Once, during one of my many times where I confirmed my inferiority, I saw a picture of a girl who had taken a picture of herself naked with a digital camera using a bathroom mirror. There were several comments posted to the picture, some of which were respectful, others degrading, but one thing was consistent, she was getting attention. If I did the same thing, I would not get the same. That is because I am ugly. In the words of a comment by a woman I'm pretty sure was straight I once saw on a message board (can't remember which, might have been here), male privates "look funny". I would like to feel both male and beautiful. I would like to know that were I to do such a thing as what that camera girl did, I would get similar comments from women. No matter how much I fight these feelings, no matter how much I tell everyone how illogical they are and how I am immune to them, they are in me too. If anything, I'm especially susceptable to them because I've never heard of a man wanting similar things.

Anyone who has seen anything I have posted in the past is going to find this to be in great contradiction to anything I have ever posted, including recently. It reveals me as in denial about my own feelings, as a hypocrite, and as a pessemistic, negative person. This is the other side of me I have shown in this post today. I have been hiding it in my sub-concious for years. I once wrote a post similar to this one, but did not post it. Most recently, I was doing a forum search, and could not avoid reading some thread titles in the woman's forum. I am not allowed in there, and I am not allowed to have my own forum because as any board admin who has tried it will tell you, men do not have maturity to discuss serious issues only other males can relate to. I am not allowed in there, so I did not click the titles, but if I am doing a search, I am going to see those titles and there is nothing I can do about it. There was one of them that deeply hurt me, offended me, and made my cry, but that thread title was only a trigger for this post. The post was coming soon anyway, whether I had seen that or not.

I want to stress that I have nothing against women. I find them attractive, intelligent and at least as capable as myself at what I do. I do not blame women for these feelings, and I recognize that not all women are sexist against men. I do not want to give an impression to the contrary, and I deeply apoligize if that is what I have done. I look forward to comments from either gender, agreeing or disagreeing with my post, supporting it or criticizing it.

As a final thought, let me restress that what I've written here is something that comes from deep within my subconsious, and it represents feelings I have of doubt. They are tucked-away, not dominating feelings. I don't want to give the impression that I am normally obsessed over my appearance, merely that there is a part of me that feels that way. One thing I have learned about human logic from prying into my mind as I have today, is that it is perfectly possible to have more than one opinion on something, and that is how I view this. I both consider it important and consider it silly and a waste of time to want to be sexually attractive. I both despise the portrayal of men created by today's society, and support it and agree I am stupid and worthless. I think it is foolish for people to assume they are inherently logical in their feelings. The feelings I typically express are the ones my logic confines me to, but these other feelings that have lost the battle remain, and they have been causing a horrendous depression. I hope I can relieve this and free myself of these inner demons by making this post. Even so, this is the hardest thing I have ever done.

Thanks for reading.