I love being a man
I'm a very sensitive man, who is deeply in touch with his feelings. Many of the stereotypes of a man fit my older sister more than me (she was the University athlete, the career woman, the one making all the decisions on the family trips), and many of the stereotypes of a woman fit me more, although we both have both.
We were lucky—our parents never made us fit into a traditional gender box, so I learned early that we all have masculine and feminine energies inside of us, and they can both be beautiful and painful. In middle school I got my nails done at my sister's makeover party and dressed up as Jordana in a dress. I had a pony tail for almost all of elementary school, and again hair down to my nipples when I was a rockstar after college. (Culture wasn't as friendly to my sister, who got made fun of for wearing Ninja Turtle costume to school - the early 90s was savage even in Austin).
But I'm still 100% a man. I love being a man, and I love what's associated with it.
I don't know what's what philosophically, if it belongs in the "man" box, if it's cultural or phylogenetic or what, obviously plenty of women have these qualities, I'm just going to riff on some of what I love that I associate with being a man, in my experience:
- I love being strong and taking care of someone who isn't as strong
- I love being able to pick up both of my kids at the same time, one in each arm
- I love wrestling with my buds
- I love being rough and aggressive in sports
- I love being a provider
- I love keeping others safe, and protecting them from harm
- I love taking huge risks, physical like cliff jumping and emotional like starting a new company when my daughter was born
- I love being able to compartmentalize and be extremely focused on one thing even when the world is falling apart around me
- I love being relied on
- I love being admired for these qualities, much more so than being handsome for example
- I love getting shit done. I love to fix shit. I love to get stuck into a puzzle and solve it. I love setting aside my feelings to accomplish a task.
- I love being able to quip back at someone and put them in their place if they're being a social bully
- I love staying silent sometimes, and just taking care of things myself/in myself
- I love to build stuff
- I love to make difficult decisions, and stay aligned with what's right even if it means people don't like me
I'll probably come back and add more to this, but here's a start!