When did you finally start feeling like a “Man” and not a just boy?

36 comments

  1. 18, living on my own, steady paycheck, fiscally responsible. Been that way ever since and it’s pretty fucking empowering.

  2. So I think that’s more of a person to person question no one’s gonna be just alike mine was the ride age of 15

  6. Well I’m young but as I get more and more independent I feel like I’m not a little kid

  8. When my back started to hurt and I couldn’t down a fifth of whiskey any more.

  9. When I stopped looking at other people for leadership and they started looking at me for it. Kinda a surreal fealing at first.

    Edit: missed a letter

  12. Raising my kids. My wife was mostly absent due to addiction so I had to step up. I spent as much time with them as I could, my boss would let me work whatever hours I could so many times I would work 10 hour shifts and adjusted my hours so I could do things like pick them up from school, help coach their sports teams,help them with homework etc. They breezed through school, graduated high school and college with honors and both have had success in almost opposite ways. And I enjoyed and continue to love every minute with them. I know that’s not moment I became a man, but that’s all I got.

  13. When my dad insulted what I do, and I didn’t give a damn; and when he (fucking finally) praised something that I made, and I still didn’t give a damn.

  14. 23 or so. Moved out, got an apartment, had an ISP I was trying to get hooked up. They called me “Hey is this Mr Summonsays?” … Oh, I guess it is now.

  15. When I stopped making pseudo rites of passages like a boy to man.

    I stopped seeking validation.

    It’s all in your head.

  18. Guess when i graduated college and pursued my dream to travel. Jumped on a plane which I’ve never been on at that point and travelled out of the country by myself to a country i didn’t speak the language of. Travelled around there for 2 weeks with ideas of what i wanted to do, no set plan or anything besides my Airbnb and plane ride back.

  19. I’m 30 and still feel weird referring to myself as a “man”. I tend to just use the more age-neutral term “guy”.

  20. employment.

    When you get your first job, and you kind of earn your own money, even if it’s a little bit of money, you feel very independent.

    especially if you got a job outside of your family or your micro system or some kind of special treatment that maybe an uncle or someone pulled for you. It was totally on your own, completely.

  22. When I realised that I’m too old for a crazy night out and take career progression seriously…

  23. I was 20, helping to dig a trench on Christmas morning in -14 degrees at 5am in rural Pennsylvania order to get my girlfriends’ family hot water. My girlfriend was wrapping a scarf around my neck and helping me get dressed. She said “thank you for helping my father do this, it’s very manly you know” and gave me a kiss.

    After 3 hours of back breaking work her father and I, both of frozen to the bone, the house had hot water and the rest of Christmas Day was a success. I got more kisses that night

  24. First taste was when I proposed at age 25; that was the first real commitment, more so than student loan. Rolling into marriage, not much changed. First born brought the reality, plus the health issues the child experienced from birth made being a man real to me.

  25. About 32 when I realized I was very good at
    My trade and most of the people I work with are seriously incompetent.

  26. When I started eating bran cereal, drinking black coffee and adding spinach in my sandwiches.

  27. One day I looked at my hands and they were a man’s hands. I didn’t notice anything overtime but the second I saw them it sort of zoomed out and I realized I had grown up. I don’t remember what age I was but it was somewhere in my early twenties.

  28. Since I’m from India, it’s an Asian mentality to stay with your parents like, forever. The time I moved out and started living independently, I knew I was doing something slightly different than my peers and while that felt a bit weird, it felt ‘manly’ beyond horizons.

    Parents still support me financially when I need it, but I’ve been on my own track for a long time now and it feels superb.

  30. I guess you start feeling like a man when life starts throwing curve balls at you and you have to deal with it on your own, and you keep learning from it. But under the mask we’re all still just boys being tough in this world as that’s what’s required.

  31. I thought it would be when I became a father, but having a kid doesn’t make you not one yourself automatically. For me, it was when I truly owned up to the fact that no one else would fix my life for me, and if I wanted my life and myself to be something, I was responsible for that.

  32. When Qaddafi opened fire on protestors, when the Americans dropped their bombs, when I started attending my school mates’ funerals… No time to be a child, I was 12 and felt like someone pulled the curtains off my eyes.
    Petersen was right, it’s absolutely necessary.

  33. When I had to start paying for bills and shit. And when I regretted earlier adult life decisions.

  35. I never really felt like a kid bc I come from a family of addiction where I was the one taking care of them my whole life. But a real tipping point was when one of my best friends died at the age of 20. Going to a childhood friends funeral. Quite the wake up call that I’m no longer a kid even tho I never felt like one

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