The Heart of the Matter

He came to talk and barely could.

He sat down on the couch, and it was really painful to witness.

His speech was incredibly halting. His body language conveyed deep uncomfortableness. His pauses and the extremely awkward silences they brought made us internally uncomfortable. It could hardly have been a more difficult interaction. 

He obviously had something to say. He desperately needed to be heard. He was trying so hard to get it out. But the words just wouldn’t come easily. His eyes were constantly averted. The tension in his entire body was palpable.

But we didn’t rush him. We didn’t try to fill the silences with our own words or platitudes. We let the awkwardness just be, knowing that we needed to let him say what he needed to say in his own time, in his own way. The words didn’t pour out freely or easily. Until they did. 

It took awhile to get there, but with patience extended by us, he got there.

It was a relationship, we ultimately learned, that was going bad. The relationship with the woman he was dating was troubled, broken, at times acrimonious. At age 40, he felt utterly alone, not knowing what to do or how to do it.

When he could finally get it out, he waded through the shame, the anguish, and the fear he was feeling. Yet another failed relationship. Yet another season of feeling so lonely and all alone. He was in utter deep distress and pain. 

His story was heartbreaking. The profound sadness of his broken heart and spirit, along with his self-esteem and sense of self-worth, was tangible. For him to get to the place where he could get it all out was painful to witness. We felt desperately bad for him. The brokenness he was sharing was beyond adequate description.

We continued to listen for months, when he’d reach out to talk again. Each time it got easier. Each time we could feel his burdens lifting. Each time, there was a more positive change in his comfort at telling us his story. We liked the guy. He was personable and vulnerable and he poured it all out.

We only wished it wouldn't have been so hard for him to get to that healing place. 

He’s not the only man for whom it is hard. We were proud of him for taking the chance, for trying, for coming to talk and for allowing us to listen. So many men don’t come at all. They are not even able to try. They have been conditioned to think it’s unmanly. Soft. Weak.

It shouldn't be that way. It’s not meant to be that way.

Men and boys need to talk, to share, to be vulnerable - and unashamed of it. But too often they’re not. 

Author Ruth Whippman has done extensive research and has had countless interviews with boys and young men for the book she wrote: 

Boymom: Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity. 

As a mother herself to three sons, she has a great interest in boys’ well-being and writes:

… I have come to believe the conditions of modern boyhood amount to a perfect storm of loneliness … All the old deficiencies and blind spots of male socialization are still in circulation - the same mass failure to teach boys relational skills and emotional intelligence, the same rigid masculinity norms and social prohibitions that push them away from intimacy and emotionality. But in screen-addicted, culture war-torn America, we have also added new ones.

We’ve also listened to many, many men who may be grown up, but who still have that young boy inside them. That boy who was told “Boys don’t cry”, ”Suck it up”, “Be strong”, “It’s weak to need help”, “Vulnerability is for girls; not for you”.

That’s why boys who grow into adulthood still hold on all too often to the belief that to reach out and to share the pain, the loneliness, and the fear, is bad to do. That’s why they resist coming to talk, to open up. That’s why even if they do come, they are halting and take so much longer to get to the heart of the matter.

Well, the heart of the matter is that boys - and the men they become - need to be recognized as persons who simply need permission and encouragement to be tender, vulnerable, authentic, open, and unafraid to be so right from the start. They need to be nurtured by being told and seeing it modeled that it’s okay for boys and the men they become to express their sadness, grief, and fears. 

Boys need to know that being vulnerable and being able to fully accept their humanness isn't weak or less masculine. But in fact, it is strong, healing, and the way to be emotionally and relationally healthy. Boys deserve and need this lesson and the permission to be who they really are, as individuals and as a collective gender. 

They, and all of us, will be better for it if they do. 

You can read an excerpt of Ruth Whippman’s thoughts in a recent New York Times article: “I Spent Three Years Talking to Boys. Here’s What I Found.”