I struggle on two fronts with this - I don’t want to “burden” others with how I feel, and fairly often I don’t know what I feel.

Grew up in the American Midwest as a preacher’s kid. My parents are awesome people, but Dad’s job meant our family had to seem close to perfect for small town political reasons - we had their support for any kind of crisis, but we had to keep it inside the house so our single limited income wasn’t threatened.

Between that and a family full of neurospiciness, it felt like we were always on the edge of catastrophe. I was generally able to get by day to day, so I just kept quiet so we all had room to deal with whatever else needs handled.

So, I think I got in the habit of bottling things until I couldn’t even tell what I was feeling, and also developed an aversion to sharing what I could tell was bothering me. I’m open to the idea of sharing things, I just can’t often tell what needs shared until it pops out unexpectedly.

No. It’s not acceptable at all to have feelings. No one will care in a positive way if you do as a man.

There is no acceptable outlets for emotion as a man.

This is way weird political shit gets so much traction as it is considered to be acceptable to be angry at idea you don’t agree with,hate an opponent or other and you are allowed to be happy at the pain you bring them.

Everything else is shut up you don’t know how good you have it or shut up you don’t know how much worse it is for someone else.

Cis male. Often yes, but there’s always room for improvement. I lean on metaphor a little hard sometimes.

I had a relationship where the other person was very Guess Culture (as opposed to Ask) and that didn’t work very well at all.

I say whatever the fuck because I’m comfortable with myself.

Men and women lie when they say they want you to express yourself more. Whether they intend to or not, they get angry or sad about you burdening them with knowledge of your own experiences. Many will atore away anything you confide with them, so they can use it against you further down the line.

I think its a maturity thing for guys. My gym buddies and I were talking about mental health a while back and I said “I was on meds for a while because I had an irrational sense that life wasnt worth living. A year later on the meds I was fat, unmotivated and had erectile dysfunction and I was like ‘Great, now I have legitimate reasons to think about killing myself’ so I came off the pills.”

The 20 somethings all looked super fucking uncomfortable, the thirty somethings nodded and made sympathetic faces and the other 40+ guy said “How are you doing with it these days?” Of course I immediately deflected and said “Oh its hard as a rock” which got the laugh and broke the tension. But the only guy who didnt duck the conversation was the guy of a similar age who had a rough divorce years before I knew him…

Yep, and I dare someone to do something about it.

Broadly and selectively, yes, I feel comfortable expressing my feelings. I’m usually more honest than the social norm, and probably more open than is common.

I have to get very comfortable with the person to express my feelings. With most of my friends I’m already very comfortable so I usually feel okay talking to them about personal things. With romantic partners… Well if I don’t get comfortable enough then I think it was never meant to be.

Of course online, pseudonymously, I have no problem talking about it all. Mostly because I’ll never meet any of you, or if I do, I won’t know it’s you.

When people tell men “you can tell me anything” what they mean is “I don’t want to feel like you’re keeping things from me.”

It 100% does NOT mean “you will face no negative consequences for telling me.”

Men keep some things to themselves because sharing feelings has resulted in getting burned too many times.

These things aren’t necessarily bad. They might just shatter exciting illusions the other person prefered over the ordinary truth.

I am an enby who presents primarily masculinely but I have a lot of feminine traits and habits too.

Which is to say I am a bearded, muscular reserve sergeant who wears a lot of flannels and wooly clothes, but I have a beautiful, glimmering head of hair that goes to my lower back which I love to braid and the routine to keep it and my face in good shape is very long every day, and in my routines am generally considered very feminine. I do makeup, I cook and bake, I sing all the time, dance freely while doing household stuff, and most crucially, I am very good at listening to others talk about feelings and such, but am also myself very much a sharer in terms of my feelings and just general thoughts too, however fragile or even embarrassing, or just cute, whatever.

I also have adhd which kind of makes me just be myself whether I wanted it or not, I mostly do and think only after. Same goes for things I say or talk about. Couldn’t hold things in if I wanted to…

Which, in turn, is all to say that I’ve always just shared my feelings and intimate thoughts and all without restrictions, mostly because that just happens, but I also like it about me and it keeps me kind of grounded and well conscious of myself, but importantly, it encourages others to share too, and I feel very much more connected to everyone around me, since we tend to talk about everything, even the difficult things.

But I was born a biological male, I present visually mostly masculinely, am very traditionally masculine looking dude, got upbringing as though I was a man, so I think my pov might be relevant still, even though I learnt, as a young adult, who I really am, what I feel, what I see, what I indentify as and how.

I did talk quite freely back when I was young teenager too, when I was still confused and tried to fit the male bill, so I think it’s something more fundamental than what I consciously understand myself to be.

Either way, it’s always been super helpful and really helped me connect deeply with people. Help them, and also get help in turn. It’s a precious thing. To share. To dare to share.

I hope it gets easier for you too.

I’m an autistic male and for me expressing myself in general is a bit awkward. During tough times I really liked expressing it to my friends and siblings since it’s a decent way to process the feelings.

The older I get, the more I realize that opening up makes things worse.