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Wearing hip boots and goggles, wading through the cesspool we call the internet, imagine my
surprise when I was first shamed with the term “misogynist.” Actually that’s not true, I found it to be uproariously funny. At a website musing a feminist utopia I said, “But what about the men? I’m really not sure we should annihilate them all!” What a dutz. If you’ve ever been a Fem on the internet, that is a major faux pas. Not the annihilation part, the words, “But what about the men?” Thou. Shall. Never. Show. Empathy. Towards. Men. We bathe in man tears! Learn it, live it, don’t ever forget it.

Seriously, “we bath in man tears” is a real thing in the internet world of feminism. I find it
to be appalling and insensitive.

It was amusing being labeled a misogynist, but in the spirit of all things NOT being equal,
it’s not the same thing at all when women call men misogynists, in fact, it’s rather cruel.
Obviously it’s done to shame and silence men, to force them to conform. It’s cruel because it
takes unfair advantage of some real biological triggers. Most men actually feel a sense of
protection towards women and when you accuse them of hating us, it messes with their heads,
their biology, their sense of reality. They recover quickly, it’s just not a nice thing
to do.

I live in an area that is economically depressed and has a high suicide rate. It’s been that way
all of my life, but when the economy crashed, we got hit particularly hard. True unemployment is
somewhere around 16% and there’s been a 24% increase in the number of suicides. Again, in the
spirit of all things NOT being equal, these issues have hit men the hardest.

Suicide makes me a bit angry. It’s an incredibly selfish act, because it isn’t all about you.
No matter how much pain you think you’re in, it hardly compares to the pain you’re going to inflict on the people who care about you. People who kill themselves take a little piece of everyone
else with them.

I actually got really mad about what so many men here were doing to themselves, but also to their mothers, wives, children, loved ones, so I asked God, what the heck is wrong with men?? They really do hate us, don’t they? Abandonment issues, what can I say.

So poof, God dropped me on my head in the manosphere.

I’ve long had a theory that misogyny in men is fairly rare, so being the scientist that I am,
I went looking for some genuine misogyny. Where else would you find the motherlode of all misogyny but in the manosphere, so with perfect synchronicity, that’s where I found myself. I’ve encountered vulgarity, hostility, and wounding all over the place, but pathological hatred of women, not so much. A few perhaps, but the vast majority were simply hot heads engaging in male peacockery and blowing off steam.

I didn’t find misogyny, I found something far more heartbreaking, the brokenness of wounded men, the pain of rejection, an endless parade of shame and a sense of failure. Did I mention the shame? They’re quite defensive about the shame. I also discovered that what men desperately seek is intimacy with women, so desperately, they’ll attempt to bend the entire nature of reality to help themselves cope with that loss. Sadly, what they seek, they so often destroy.

Most of them would probably deny it, but they want communion with women, intimacy, to be seen, to be valued. They want companionship and conversation and trust and closeness. True love, romance, the stuff of dreams and fairytales. Many of them no longer believe in those things, believe they were lied to, tricked, deceived. Collateral damage in some sort of Divine comedy.

Seriously, it was painful to read and I grieve for many of them. Shattered illusions and broken hearts are not fun to look at.

The stereotypes of women that some of these men have prance around like never ending defense mechanisms. Women are only attracted to jerks, women act instinctually out of fear, women are purely biologically driven, women this, women that… The number of stereotypes surprised me, almost as if they could just get the recipe right, women would make more sense. A bit like putting a table together from IKEA.

They’re trying so hard to understand the nature of women, but hardly bothering to get to know the nature of themselves, as it were possible to find a shortcut to intimacy that doesn’t involve self acceptance, the ability to empathize with the other gender, and a long term relationship that builds trust.

The ones who really break my heart are the Pick Up Artists. They’re funny, they’re cleaver, they’re going to collect as many conquests as possible and get something out of the deal. I suspect they are the ones that crave intimacy with women the most, but they’ve sold themselves short. They broke my heart because they’re just pouring dozens of women into that abyss of wounding that always leaves you feeling emptier than when you first started. They don’t know that yet, but someday they will and they won’t like it very much.

I’ve long been aware of the fact that men have a huge investment in their identities as providers, their ability to make money and to have successful relationships with women. They don’t have quite the same emotional flexibility about these issues that women have. It’s tightly woven around their identities, how they judge and measure themselves, how they perceive themselves as men. If you pull those two rugs out from under them, they’re often left staring into the abyss.

Far too many men define themselves with those two worldly things, money and their success with women. It’s a bit depressing to know that so many men limit their worth and value in such a flat, two dimensional way. Men are so much more, they have worth and value in the world that extends so far beyond those two things, and many are completely unaware of it.

There are a lot of men in the manopshere who identify themselves Christians. I don’t say this to shame anybody,but to truly follow Christ you have to recognize your worth, your value to Him. He really doesn’t just hand you crosses to bear, He lifts you up and makes you a better version of yourself. It’s a bit tongue in cheek, but I like to say there can be no such thing as a miserable Christian, it’s simply not allowed. One is actually commanded to go forth boldly and confidently, not resigned and miserable. God wants us to love our lives, ourselves, and each other.

As is the nature of men, they won’t listen to me, so anything I have to say would likely fall on deaf ears, but if I could tell them a few things it would be to stop looking to women for fulfillment, we’re only human, so we’re simply incapable of filling that void so many of you have. Stop pouring worldly things into your abyss, money, women, alcohol, drugs, that’s the path to despair. Find your worth and value in something greater than yourselves. Also, stop trying to save civilization and change the world. That journey needs to begin a bit closer to home.

One last bit of wisdom that comes from walking with Christ for so long, if your heart is hardened with bitterness and strong holds, someone with the courage to speak the truth to you will appear to be mendacious, deceitful. The truth will appear to you as a deception. When you allow yourself to put up those walls and harbor bitterness, you render yourself incapable of ever seeing the beauty being cast at your feet. Those are prisons of our own making. There is beauty to be found even in the ashes. Don’t wall yourself off.