I Do Not Hate Men

Now, if you didn't know, I'm constantly riding the emotional rollercoaster; my mood swings outrank the average person by far. Some of my best friends call me psychotic and crazy (yes, they're male, how did you guess?) and I hate it more than anything. But to be fair, they're not really too far off..? I prefer the phrase 'emotionally-unbalanced-in-response-to-all-the-crap-I've-gone-through-in-the-last-year' but I guess that's just me. Sorry, I'm done with the shade, I love them, moving forward. 

Now in avoidance of another emotional purge like I demonstrated last semester, see this post if you're curious, I'll be quick: sometimes I get super mad, sometimes I get super sad, sometimes I'm jealous, clingy, petty, happy, calm, etc.. I feel like I'm about to have an emotional breakdown if a friend is acting weird, after losing a childhood best friend (not by death, by lies...don't worry) in a really awful situation recently. I feel extraordinarily irritated if truth is being withheld from me due to countless situations of secrets-gone-bad. I feel like I want to lay in bed and wallow in stupidity when I mess up a test. And to insert a -positive-, last time I PR-ed after a race, I cried with happiness. In summary, life constantly feels like a game to me-- don't upset the wrong people, but stand up for yourself and your beliefs.. be happy, choose happy, calm down--but I can't play it right. And so, my hormones decide to go crazy.

I. Am. SO. Emotional.

But here's the thing, a point I feel the need to make since everyone in 5th hour Valentino probably thinks I'm a Man Hating Feminazi by now: society lets me feel. I may be some crazy hormonal girl who obviously is on her period (because women are so obviously overemotional, so much in fact that John Adams refused to give up his power in fear of the "Despotism of the Peticoat"), but at least it is relatively normal for me to be able to cry in the Troy High bathrooms, when the drama is simply over my head. For guys? Forget about it. If they want to cry, if they want to complain on their private social media accounts about how upset and gross and disgusting their lives or bodies or feelings may make feel, they are -automatically- a "pussy." They're marked as people who act like 'girls'.

Which, first off, why is that an insult. Second off, why are we labelling emotions as only a -female- thing? Life happens to every human out there, not just females... Are we really going to pretend that bottling things up is the way to go? Third, why does society judge those for showing emotions? Our world still has a long way to go.

Now, I obviously don't know how it feels to be a guy (I do have close guy friends, however, so I'm not entirely clueless), so I'm definitely not going to pretend to. But, as a frequent crier, I can confirm that I would not make it in a world that forbids me to cry in front of people, a world where I'm banned to holding it in and being A Man and 'growing a pair'. Our society is obviously improving, but can we maybe stop holding guys to the extremely high standard of emotional 'strength'? Studies show that women are more likely to seek treatment for depression than men, and it's a well-known fact that suicide rates are higher for men than women. Seriously, that's how far this sucking-in-feelings-because-I-have-to- thing can go. Guys may lack estrogen and the symptoms of what happens when that estrogen drops, but all humans feel.

I personally just cannot fathom a world where emotion means I need to toughen up. So, here's a reminder to all my classmates reading this: if you have kids some day, you better not be that person and tell your little boy with all of his little kid feelings that he needs to be A Man. Always, always, always try your best to be strong, but its not humanely possible to always do so--no matter what gender you are.