None of my gay acquaintances or friends talk about this tension as intensely
That's because it is tragic and depressing and makes homosexuals look bad. No one straight or gay has ever expressed the issue I lay out explicitly to me, but damn if I don't notice it, over and over and over, in all of my relationships and all of the relationships of gay men I have known in the past and the present. self_made questions the generalizability of what I describe but in my experience it's universal. I wouldn't advise asking your gay friends about it either, really, it is better left unspoken, though it is sad that it's such a dead end situation that I've come to the conclusion that you just have to work it out on your own and accept it for how it is.
The same dynamics of power/strength/bravery play out in hetero relationships. These qualities are intrinsically good. Women may joke about being smol, but none of them brag about being cowards.
I don't know. Please expand this? It seems like the qualities men and women compete at are almost always completely different fields. A woman may be powerful and strong and brave at social relationships and keeping a house and other traditionally feminine domains but it's emasculating and weird if she's powerful and strong and brave - compared to you, a man - at traditionally masculine domains. Women may not "brag about being cowards" but if she's the one stalking around with a shotgun at the sound of an intruder at midnight while you cower under some blankets it's a weird dynamic at best if not utterly embarrassing for both of you.
That's because it is tragic and depressing and makes homosexuals look bad. No one straight or gay has ever expressed the issue I lay out explicitly to me, but damn if I don't notice it, over and over and over, in all of my relationships and all of the relationships of gay men I have known in the past and the present. self_made questions the generalizability of what I describe but in my experience it's universal. I wouldn't advise asking your gay friends about it either, really, it is better left unspoken, though it is sad that it's such a dead end situation that I've come to the conclusion that you just have to work it out on your own and accept it for how it is.
I don't know. Please expand this? It seems like the qualities men and women compete at are almost always completely different fields. A woman may be powerful and strong and brave at social relationships and keeping a house and other traditionally feminine domains but it's emasculating and weird if she's powerful and strong and brave - compared to you, a man - at traditionally masculine domains. Women may not "brag about being cowards" but if she's the one stalking around with a shotgun at the sound of an intruder at midnight while you cower under some blankets it's a weird dynamic at best if not utterly embarrassing for both of you.
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