by Olivia Sullivent

If you can turn discomfort into a punchline, you’re rewarded.

I’ve watched men hurt themselves in socially acceptable ways and get applauded for it. The reckless night out, the bender turned into a story worth retelling, the self-deprecating joke that sounds suspiciously like a confession. There’s a strange tolerance for male self-destruction, as long as it’s entertaining and doesn’t ask anything of the rest of us.  

When masculinity is based on not feeling, feeling becomes a threat. 

When worth is tied to dominance, control, or desirability, vulnerability feels like failure. And when no one teaches you how to express or deal with your emotions, you reach for whatever dulls the noise: alcohol, humor, drugs, detachment, silence. 

What’s troubling isn’t that men struggle; it’s that their struggle is seen as part of their character. The emotionally unavailable heartthrob. The guy who “just doesn’t talk about his feelings.” We treat these traits as inevitable, sometimes even attractive.

Nowadays, their armor can look smarter. They quote philosophy, study the Stoics, and reference podcast clips they half-remember from Instagram reels about masculinity and trauma. It sounds insightful. It looks like growth. But often it functions the same way humor always has: as protection.

I’ve watched men talk fluently about emotions, then shut down the moment conflict demands vulnerability. They can explain feelings. They just can’t feel them.

And when thinking their way around the pain stops working, they numb it instead.

Hard drugs. Risk. Self-destruction disguised as fun. There’s a cultural permission slip for it, especially among men. As long as the damage looks like confidence, it’s okay. As long as it’s framed as a phase or a joke, no one asks what it’s covering. 

I saw it clearly once.

“Are you really in Greek life if you don’t experience it?” he said, chuckling, talking about sexual assault like it was a rite of passage he’d survived. I blinked. Then I asked, carefully, “What do you mean by that?”

He stared a beat too long. Reached for his drink. Chugged it. Pretended nothing had happened.

A drink in hand is rarely just a drink. It’s a way to pretend the fear, doubt, and vulnerability aren’t there. I understood then that when masculinity feels threatened, numbness becomes the escape.

What isn’t “cool” is saying I’m scared, I don’t know who I am, or I’m not okay. Tears, uncertainty, and asking for help, these are feminized, minimized, and laughed at.

If my masculinity were threatened, if I had been taught that feeling deeply made me weak and that needing people made me small, I might numb it too. I would grab a drink and act like nothing hurts, because nothing can.

But that’s the cost.

Fragile masculinity doesn’t just punish men. It punishes intimacy, honesty, and connection. It teaches boys that being human is something to outgrow.

We teach men how to survive without ever teaching them how to feel. They’re taught to be composed, to joke through discomfort, to numb what doesn’t fit, to intellectualize what threatens them, and we call that strength.

Masculinity doesn’t have to be this rigid.

If we all want to be seen for who we truly are, we must start noticing the parts of the story that often get overlooked: the acts that shield fear, the drinks that dull pain, the ways some men are taught to avoid feeling, and the ways many were never shown that softness can coexist with strength.

Noticing this is how we start to change the story. And maybe writing this is my way of saying I see it. I’m paying attention.

Honestly,

Liv