u/FishoBoii

I don't like boxing people in groups based on stereotypes, so I want to re-iterate that this is from my experience. But lately, I've really been struggling with my own friend circle of male friends. I am a guy, and I do love to entertain some of the traditional male humour, but I find a lot of my friendship fail to hold any depth. I'm a curious person, and something that I love when socialising is understanding how people view the world and how they created or formulated their opinions of the world. But across all my male friends, I find that maybe 1 or 2 of them feel like they're able to tap into this kind of conversation. Some want to shift conversation, others use humour to joke out of it or I even have some people that feel like it's "going deep". Same goes when it comes to talking about or sharing our problems, like I'm in a group chat and one of the guys in this friend chat posted that his partner of 5 years decided to split up and literally nobody responded back to him. I mean, nobody. Some people reacted to it, but not even 1 hour later and someome posted a meme about something unrelated and the conversation moved on from there. Like, am I weird for thinking this feels so disrespectful? Keep in mind, these guys been friends for 15+ years and catch up frequently to watch football and we have similar humour and interests in that regard. But whenever someone addresses a concern that involves being vulnerable in any capacity, it's like everyone freezes up.

Even outside my friend group, my wife and I often go to couple hang outs with her female friends, and usually me and all of their partners will hang out while the girls all catch up. They are all really nice fellas and super friendly, but man, the same thing. It just feels like all we do is banter and joke the whole time. Which, don't get me wrong. I love to banter, but it feels like the same thing as my group chat. Very surface level. But they all seem fine with this being the case. I feel like they are a lot more closer to eachother than I am to them; and I do start to wonder that my internal need for some sense of emotional transparency does sometime exclude me from making friends.

But I have noticed that I'd much rather hang out with my wife and her friends. They seem to not only be able to talk about their thoughts and convey them better, but they also feel more reflective on why they think the way they do. Even outside of my wifes friend group, I do find that I enjoy conversations with women more even in other settings. Like I went to a wedding on the weekend where my wife was a bridesmaid to one of friends and I didn't know anyone; and I found that during the ceremony a lot of the guys I spoke to were incredibly hard to start a conversation. It felt like the conversations always came back to what we do for work, and it never naturally opened up to anything else. Meanwhile, the women I spoke to were very easygoing. Is this more just a case of men often having more walls up than women? I don't know. I think for me, I feel like I'm not asking people to reveal their deeper secrets. I just love listening to people's stories, and men seem to be very blazzay about everything.

I don't know. Maybe I'm a bit femine in that sense and this could be why. Or maybe the male friends I attract don't have curious minds when it comes to this area. I'm curious to know what other people thoughts are on this topic, do people tend to agree with this line or reasoning?

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My mother had an incestuous relationship with her dad. My mother is extremely autistic and he took advantage of that fact to not only have 1 kid, but 3. I have 2 brothers who have come from the same circumstances. We were estranged from the rest of our extended family the moment I was old enough to remember being alive. I had no memory of my mother. Instead, we grew up with our Dad. To say that he was an evil individual is an understatement. I won't go into details, but he was convicted of murder a few years after his death. In case the "raping his own daughter" thing wasn't already bad enough. I remember I first found out about the origin of how we came to be when I was around 9-10 years old. Being the youngest, my brothers were told by our father to keep this information a secret until I was older, but word eventually got out. At the time, I didn't really understand the situation, so I didn't really know how to feel about it at the time. But based on my brothers reaction, I gauged that it wasn't a  normal thing.

The story we were told was that our grandmother attempted to commit suicide by cutting her wrists. The reason she did this was because she got her tubes tide and could no longer have babies. Our Dad told us that our Mum (his daughter) had fancied him and was happy to have his babies to help give our grandmother babies. Which, I know, sounds like a ridiculous story to believe. But we were shut in, young and impressionable. We had no communication from other family members, we resented our mother for giving us to this psychopath. So we all pretty much believed this story for most of our lives.

As I gotten older and started to reach out to my extended family for answers, I've learned more about the origin of this story. My grandmother did attempt to end her life, but it was because she wanted to get away from Dad (her husband) and the abuse that was taking place in that household.

Anyway, as I grew up and began to finally make sense of this. I slowly started to see myself as a monster. Someone that no one could ever love. I felt like I couldn't share this secret with anyone, and if I did, they would leave me - or they would stay, but never see me in the same light again. It was quite crippling for most of my teenage life. It wasn't until I was around 24yo and about 4 years of therapy until I finally started dating to challenge this fact. I met a girl who would eventually become my first girlfriend. 2 years have passed and things were going well until our mother decided to open a lawsuit against my Dad. This was followed up by detectives coming to see me and my 2 brothers for saliva samples to confirm that we are the results of inbreeding.

At the time, we all were very hesitant. I think most of us didn't want to know the truth behind the results of this test. But eventually we folded, and decided to do the test. 1 week later and it was confirmed. Undeniable truth that me, my brothers and our mum shared the same Dad.  This was kind of a ticking time bomb for me, as we have a very unique last name. So unique that if word leaked about this investigation, it wouldn't take long for people to connect the dots. So, I started panicking about my girlfriend finding out and what she might think of all of this. This resulted in the relationship falling apart along with me falling out of my friend group at the time. The following couple of years were very tough for me. But it forced me to address the giant elephant in the room. Forced me to try and learn to accept that this is a part of who I am.

I was lucky to meet my now wife during this hard period. She saw me at my worst, and she stayed with me through all the hard times.  I am now 33 years old and my origin is something that not only am I content with, but I actively feel this urge to talk to people about. I think this is the result of me wanting to "normalise" the situation, but unfortunately, this isn't normal. This is information that doesn't just impact how people see me, but how people see everyone that shares the same last name as me. Knowing this is probably the things that I struggle with the most because it forces me to hide a huge part of my story with people that I meet.

I still remember when my wife's mum asked me about my parents, or why I grew up with my "grandparants" as a kid; and how I have to make up a whole storyline around why this came to be. I always have to talk abstractly; and I feel like for most people, this wouldn't be a problem to them. But for me, I value honesty and transparency. I want to be an open book to people; and a part of me gets upset that I can't be that person.

A few years ago I decided to finally reach out to talk to my mother. It wasn't until those dark years that I made the realisation, that our mother didn't abandoned us. She was most likely still healing from her own demons. What started of as resentment from my teenage years, turned into guilt in my adulthood. Guilt that maybe the reason our mother never came to saw us was that we were living proof of her trauma. This, was a very hard realisation for me to come to. Maybe because I struggle (still to this day) to remind myself that both things can exists. I can still feel abandoned, but I can also feel sympathy for the one that abandoned me. They don't cancel eachother out. But, somewhere along the line, I started to critique myself for holding resentment towards her. I think selfishly, a part of the reason I wanted to reach out to my mother was to challenge this belief; and maybe I wanted to alleviate some of that guilt and resentment by actually talking to her 1-on-1. It wasn't until I spoke to her that I realised how detached she is from her emotions. Understandably so, given what happened. But I think it dawned on me that I wasn't really seeking forgiveness, but I was seeking a mum. She has had a hard life. One harder than lots of people on this earth, me included. My relationship with my mother has slowly faded away as the years passed, and I think I put a lot of pressure on myself to be a better person and reach out more often. But I think deep down, I still hold onto that resentment that my young self held onto. Despite now knowing the circumstances, it still feels like I have a long way to go. .

Sorry for rattling on. This last bit probably didn't need to be added. But I felt the need to share this story. I'm 33 years old this August and it feels like every year I'm learning how much my childhood has crafted the person I am today. In some ways, I feel like the hard parts of my childhood has forced me to confront my demons and grow as a person. But it has also planted a deep seed that I am unlovable. Unwanted. My wife does a great job at insuring me that this is not true, but that's the thing with childhood beliefs. They're always there. They rarely go away