is balance really a good thing?

[greenwizard]

When I log onto Facebook I like to take little quizzes because I think it's fun to see the results. One of them was 'How Feminine Are You?'. I got that I am 55% masculine, and 45% feminine. It said I'm a healthy balance.

Now, I'm not sure how much scientific fact is behind this. The questions were like what sports I like and how many pairs of shoes I own. But my girl said regardless of the means, the results seem about right.

Balance is usually considered a good thing, but in this case? I wasn't abused as a child, but like many of you I watched all the masculine boys and was very envious. Society says if you have a penis and you're not at least like 80% masculine there is something wrong with you.

 

[Chris4TheMill]

For me it would be crucial to know what they qualify as "feminine." For example, I am a guy but have very deep emotions.
I also have an appreciation for the arts as opposed to watching sports. In most normative polls the way they are set up, that alone would cause me to fall closer to the "feminine" side. However, that just reflects societal norms of what is considered "typical." It doesn't allow for complexities. Also, I don't believe that having a wide emotional range means a weaker man, in fact I would think that would make an enlightened or enhanced one. However, by standard definitions of manhood that puts someone outside of the accepted norm. But is the norm desirable to everyone?

Now I might struggle with other stereotypical male characteristics that I lack and wish I had, but others I do not wish to have.
But again, I would want to know what they are basing their conclusion on before deciding how important their assessment was.

I hope that makes some sense...Good question though.

 

[Hoss]

Sounds like a good balance.


All babies start out as female phenotype in the first trimester. All males have the potential to be female and all females have the potential to be male. If you start suppressing aspects of your psyche, then you will develop psychological and physiological issues.

Compare it to what psychology calls your shadow. Suppressing your shadow, instead of incorporating it, is not a healthy thing in the long run.

In the Gospel of Thomas verse 22 it expresses the idea of being counter-cultural, or counter conditional; which is what most societal rules are, nothing but a majority trying to impose their ideas on to the marginalized and disenfranchised.

https://gnosis.org/naghamm/gthlamb.html

the kingdom comes from within. what makes you happy is not necessarily going to be considered a positive attribute, or behavior, by another. control is always about power and creating hierarchies. you can't profit from what you can't control. An infant has not become conditioned by society, or attached to ideas of good/bad, about things that are culturally irrelevant, like tradition. truths transcends cultural differences. we are human based on how we act towards one another. Love is timeless.

 

[greenwizard]

I probably would've scored higher masculine points if I lied and said I only own 1 pair of shoes. I mean, it's not like I match shoes with outfits, which is considered a female trait. I have seasonal shoes. I have sandals for summer, what I call slip ons for spring and fall, boots for winter, and a pair of decent dress shoes.

My girl says balance is good. She wouldn't like me if I was purely stereotypical masculine. I am also emotional, although sometimes to the point they get the better of me. And I would so much rather go see a play than a basketball game.

 

[Tom E.]

I have some so called feminine tendencies too. I'm mostly Gay in my sexual history and most of the time, a "bottom".
I use to envy the sports-hero boys in high school too. I thought of myself as weak, less of a man at times.

 

[Hoss]

I have heard that men; especially masculine men, use sex to get affection and women use affection to get sex.


https://abcnews.go.com/Health/kissing-cuddling-important-men-women-long-term-relationships/story?id=14022238

another good website about relationships and/or actions of females vs male is:

https://www.scienceofrelationships.com/

 

[Chris4TheMill]

I have heard that men; especially masculine men, use sex to get affection and women use affection to get sex.

Hey Hoss, I think it is the other way around actually....
Men use affection to get sex and women use sex to get...well, they say they want love as well as affection.

 

[greenwizard]

Society says that men just want lots of sex and are very horny. I have to check the feminine box on that too because for me sex is very tied to emotion. Like that article, my current relationship hasn't been that long, our 2nd anniversary is in August, but I'm happy as a pig in mud when we just sit on the couch and cuddle while watching TV. When I'm sick I'm a cuddle whore. When she wants to get me primed for sex in a gentle way there are a few spots she knows to kiss and/or play with.

But she says she really likes me just as I am. I think she's kind of balanced too. She's a gamer, which is traditionally a guy thing. With clothes she goes for comfort over fashion, and she only has 3 pairs of shoes. I think in a lot of ways I'm more girly than she is, which may be why we work.

She says variety is the spice of life. And really, I'm probably not as different as I think I am. She thinks most men have deep emotions, they just hide it in public because they were taught to growing up. But bottling things up isn't healthy. Sure, when out in public I'm very quiet and reserved and well behaved. At home she encourages me to be totally myself. When I started making candles she even helped me by putting up a small business of selling them in her name because it's mostly women who buy candles and we figured they'd prefer to buy from another woman.

And um, shameless self promotion here, but if anyone is interested in a pretty soy jar candle... I'm right here people...

 

[greenwizard]

I had a dream last night that reminded me why I fight myself being the way I am, and wish so much that I could've just been a 'normal boy'.

We have to go all the way back to Algebra II class in the 10th grade. We were doing equations. Okay, 6x +9 = 4y/2 What you do to one side the of the equal sign you have to do to the other to whittle things down and get either y or x alone. This concept I understand perfectly.

Then we got to the dreaded word problems. Oh how I always hated those. But these, they were worse. This time the teacher wanted us to read the problem and construct an equation to solve it. I couldn't do it. Whatever linear line of thinking is required to preform that task, my brain is not capable of it. You give me a word problem and tell me I have to pick one thing to be x and another to be y and turn all the info into a nice neat little package I will look at you like you've grown 2 extra heads.

The time came for the test on the chapter. There were 4 word problems on it. I could've easily just skipped them because I knew I just wasn't capable of giving the teacher what he wanted. However, I thought maybe if I solve the problems in my own way I'll get partial credit for correct answers?

I didn't. The tests came back and they were all marked wrong with lots of question marks where I had to show my work. It all made perfect sense to me, but I guess it didn't to him. We went over the test as a class. The answers I came up with were in fact all correct. I just lost all those points because the method I used in coming up with those answers was wrong.

The painful lesson I learned that day is you don't get any points in this life for being a little different.

 

[Hoss]

I had a dream last night that reminded me why I fight myself being the way I am, and wish so much that I could've just been a 'normal boy'.

We have to go all the way back to Algebra II class in the 10th grade. We were doing equations. Okay, 6x +9 = 4y/2 What you do to one side the of the equal sign you have to do to the other to whittle things down and get either y or x alone. This concept I understand perfectly.

Then we got to the dreaded word problems. Oh how I always hated those. But these, they were worse. This time the teacher wanted us to read the problem and construct an equation to solve it. I couldn't do it. Whatever linear line of thinking is required to preform that task, my brain is not capable of it. You give me a word problem and tell me I have to pick one thing to be x and another to be y and turn all the info into a nice neat little package I will look at you like you've grown 2 extra heads.

The time came for the test on the chapter. There were 4 word problems on it. I could've easily just skipped them because I knew I just wasn't capable of giving the teacher what he wanted. However, I thought maybe if I solve the problems in my own way I'll get partial credit for correct answers?

I didn't. The tests came back and they were all marked wrong with lots of question marks where I had to show my work. It all made perfect sense to me, but I guess it didn't to him. We went over the test as a class. The answers I came up with were in fact all correct. I just lost all those points because the method I used in coming up with those answers was wrong.

The painful lesson I learned that day is you don't get any points in this life for being a little different.

i had a chem teacher that once told me, "I don't care how you get the answer; so long as you get the right answer."

there are exceptions to all the rules. some folk who don't excel in the natural sciences might be more successful in the social realm. some scenarios are like the ugly duckling, until the person finds their niche.

more and more in the business sector are looking at schizophrenics and autistics for their innovative perspective on things.

two scientist that come to mind are Tesla and Temple Grandin

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/27/opinion/sunday/schizophrenic-not-stupid.html

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/oct/17/autistic-employees-can-give-companies-an-edge-in-innovative-thinking

 

[Chris4TheMill]

The painful lesson I learned that day is you don't get any points in this life for being a little different.

Yes, some of us have tried our very best and have gotten slapped down anyway. If I had a dollar for all of my times of that, I would be writing you from my private island right now....as well as my mansions in France, Italy, Ireland, and California.

I can't say that I have had many successes being different. I have done a huge amount of longing to be the "regular guy" type.
In college I identified with the main character in Thomas Mann's "Tonio Kroger." He was an artist who felt like he was destined to be different from others due to his insights and sensitivity. But he longed at times to be like the "normal" people that he saw just enjoying life and love and not giving it much thought.

I have done my best given my unique circumstances and make-up. If that is still not going to be enough, it is going to be up to me to make peace with it. I am starting to make some peace with it, but it has it's difficult moments when I would gladly trade with someone else. It just seems like life would be so much easier.
But I am sure there would be just a different set of challenges there.

I will say though that if I had a woman who loved me despite the fact that I am not the 6+ foot, rough and tumble, sports-obsessed, car-fixing, non-communicative workaholic, I would consider that a huge success worthy of tons of points. That to me would make up for a wealth of other crushing disappointments.

 

[greenwizard]

Well right now I'm feeling pretty bad about myself thinking about school and just all the things I struggled with. Math period was a nightmare. I still remember trying to learn multiplication in 3rd grade. There was this test we all took, and if you failed, and I did, you got your recess privilege taken away. I spent a little over a week inside the classroom while everyone else was outside playing studying those multiplication tables and taking practice tests until I could pass that test. I did eventually, but barely.

In the 4th grade we were given a writing assignment. In it somewhere had to be a person who was in a canoe on a river without a paddle. And I wrote this very cool adventure story with the ending being that the guy wakes up and it turns out the whole thing is a crazy dream. He fell asleep in his canoe and lost his paddle. I worked so hard on it and was so proud of it. The teacher even told me she was extremely impressed and enjoyed it because of how creative it was. However, she had to fail me because it wasn't what she was looking for. A creative writing assignment that I failed for being too creative.

Every time I had to write a research paper I wanted to cry. Obviously whatever I came up with had to please the teacher grading it, and not sound copied and pasted from my research material. I usually managed to do it and get a decent grade, but it was so hard and frustrating. They always wanted a certain format of linear logic that is very difficult for me.

For the most part I loved Biology, and will get to why in a bit. But I will never forget the day the teacher was out and we had a substitute. Instead of going over the usual material we were given a busy work assignment. We had to read an article and then write a paper on it. I read the article, really I did. I even still remember that it was about elephants. Problem is that was all I remembered. I spent the class just staring at a blank piece of paper having no idea what to write, and I didn't turn anything in.

The reason I had such trouble with that is I have difficulty understanding the written word sometimes. I have trouble with it sticking. I don't know why but I can read a sentence 5 times, and I quite often do, and only remember part of it. Those standardized tests where you had to read a story and then answer questions, thank god I could go back and look up the answer because I had to do that with most of the questions. My reading comprehension looks great on paper because I'm a talented skimmer. Those tests were timed and I could just skim really fast through the article to find the relevant information.

I hated having to read things out loud. I sounded like a moron. I was slow and jerky. When reading a paragraph with multiple lines, as I often do when reading I lost my place and had to figure out what line I was on. It's not something I often share with people, but even when reading for pleasure I often have to read the same sentence multiple times. I usually do better on forums like this where people type as they would talk. Still, if I try to participate in a conversation and I say something that doesn't quite jive with topic, it is likely something got lost in translation and I misunderstood what the original poster was trying to say.

What I loved were the classes where the teacher would go over everything verbally. If I hear it then it sticks. I was the star in those classes. My 11th grade World History class, that one was great. We had conversations about stuff. And the tests were multiple choice or fill in the blank. No essay questions for me to stare blankly at. Like, okay, now I guess it's Shark Week again on the Discovery Channel. I can watch a documentary about sharks, and then go on and on about all the cool things I learned. If I read an article with the same information I swear it's the elephants all over again.

I swear I'm not stupid. Actually, yeah, I'm stupid.

 

[dark empathy]

Society says if you have a penis and you're not at least like 80% masculine there is something wrong with you.

Society can go to hell as far as I am concerned. I learned at secondary school what being "different" meant and what it got me. But I never had a choice to be anything other than what I am.

Part of this is having a visible disability where most people ignore that I exist, part of it is justbeing me. However why should I care about the reason it's not my problem after all.

I used to sign many of my posts with "fuck humanity" and foster a contempt for everyone who was given all the acceptance I was denied by simply being who and what they are. These days I tend just to ignore them, after all why should I care about something that cares nothing for me.

Show me a real individual and I'll be a nice as you like, but "society" with all it's little assumptions and idiocies I have no time for at all.

Oh and btw, no, society is not made up of individuals, I have been the only person in a crowded room too often to know that to be true.

As to the masculine/feminine distinction, I always end up pretty feminine on all the tests too. ironically, so does my wife which is completely odd, then again ours very much is a marriage of like likes like rather than opposites attract, again a reason why "society" is just plane wrong since the last thing my wife as a gentle, kind loving person ever wanted is a big dumb masculine jock.

I will say though that if I had a woman who loved me despite the fact that I am not the 6+ foot, rough and tumble, sports-obsessed, car-fixing, non-communicative workaholic, I would consider that a huge success worthy of tons of points. That to me would make up for a wealth of other crushing disappointments.

I very much hope you find that person Chriss. I did myself and yes, it is amazing how much easier it to take being one of society's pariahs when I have someone who loves me the way my lady does and is in her own way just as alone as I was.

In fairness she is less jaded on the matter of society than I am and still believes we might find some degree of acceptance somewhere, though whether this comes about we'll see, either we're now alone together which makes us not alone at all, and is another reason I can tell "society" go and jump in a lake.