This article will discuss why guys always have to apologize when they’re just being themselves and expressing themselves. If you’ve ever read one of these responses to a girl, then you’ll understand this debate.
On Meetups.com
When an invitation to an event with a specific profile photo went out, most RSVPed guys were immediately suspended. Some said that they wanted to make sure it wasn’t spammed.
Others said they had switched their profile photos (sometimes because they were flagged for doing that). Others weren’t sure.
It seemed like any time you guys had something on Meetup.com that could be perceived as offensive; you’d be automatically suspended.
Why did the people with the offensive photos get suspended, but not the ones with appropriate photos? I have no idea.
I don’t know who made the rules. But I know how it felt to be one of those guys: You get snubbed at a party for having a photo from before you lost weight.
You get barred from a Meetup event for having a photo from your sophomore year of college.
What’s worse, you have to deal with the shame of a potential employer who doesn’t see your profile picture as a substitute for your resumé.
Women don’t get treated this way. You don’t have to send an apology email every time someone refers to you as a “fat guy.”
Most women I know don’t even know what “fat guy” means. The irony is that the system isn’t really designed to punish guys for any offensive behavior.
It’s designed to hurt us as people, not as human resources departments try to dole out slaps on the wrist.
On dating apps
Many guys use dating apps and then express themselves by adding photos of themselves that reflect their true identities. But then these “real guys” get targeted with abuse and threats because their photos don’t accurately portray who they really are.
We know the optics are bad. Women see a photo and immediately think, “You’re so pretty!”
But they don’t usually see a photo and think, “You’re not what I thought you would be!”
When I talk to women about how men are treated on dating apps, their favorite response is, “That’s not fair.”
Their reason for saying this is always, “That’s not real.” When you know what’s wrong, it becomes fair.
When you know what’s unfair, it becomes fair.
At job interviews
I don’t know what the rules are. I don’t even know if there are any rules.
The only thing I can think of is that you’re supposed to leave out the offensive photos. But I see nothing in the way of addressing the question of who’s responsible for the hiring decision.
Asking the right question – who is accountable for hiring someone – and also addressing the real reason why women don’t like men with beards is more work, but it’s work that needs to be done.
At parties
When I was an undergraduate, I was a big partygoer. I wasn’t a big drinker, and I didn’t get drunk easily.
But I didn’t drink a lot because I wanted to have fun. I didn’t want to feel the “blues” (which I define as feeling like shit).
I didn’t want to act like a drunk idiot. I wanted to be myself.
I wanted to be around my friends and party like a drunken idiot rather than be the sober guy at the party, talking about serious stuff.
My friends are surprised when I say it would be better if you were drunk at a party. A lot of them do it anyway, and they seem to think it’s cool.
I’m not drinking anymore because I don’t want to feel like I’m pretending to be something I’m not.
At work
A friend of mine once told me that they found that their friends didn’t seem to like him after they hired a guy. She said they said things like, “He’s not really funny.”
And, “He’s too opinionated.”
Maybe the problem wasn’t that he was an asshole. Maybe it was because he wasn’t as smart as he was funny.
I don’t know if that’s a fair thing to say about someone you hired. But I do know that the problem might not have been the person who hired him.
This attitude of, “Who am I to say who’s right and who’s wrong?” This is a common statement women make to me.
This is the same problem I was describing earlier.
“Who am I to say who’s right and who’s wrong?”
I don’t know. I have no way to know.
Maybe I’m the worst possible person to decide your life.
I don’t know what the best person to decide your life is. But if you’re asking me, “Who am I to tell you what you should do?”
I feel like I have to say no. I can’t say, “Just go with what you feel.” I don’t know what you feel, and I don’t think it’s fair to tell you.
It’s certainly not fair to ask me.
My friend and I were talking about the confidence of women. She said that when she’s having trouble with men, she tells herself, “It’s not you. It’s them.”
I wonder if there are other reasons for women not being as confident as men, and some are probably easier to address than other things. I feel like the confidence I mentioned earlier — the self-assurance and certainty of women — is essential to a woman’s life approach.
If she doesn’t have it, then she’s going to be quite different from the other women I’ve met.
