Arun says I give myself bad report cards.

What does this mean?

• I'm afraid of being seen as stupid.
• I often say I'm retarded, and people will respond, "I think you're hiding in your humor."
• I didn't know what they meant until I realized I'm afraid of being seen as stupid. Joking about it is half embracing it. I really just got to allow myself to say whatever stupid shit comes to mind.

For my entire life, I listened to people tell me what being a man was and assumed I was doing it wrong and would never really get it right. There is likely a significant amount of intrinsic value in adopting masculine traits. Being more decisive is a gift to yourself and the people around you. But I only adopted more decisiveness because I believed women demanded it of me to be considered attractive. Masculinity just felt like WORK that I had to do to get women.