Why do men complain less?

27 comments

1. Because nobody fucking cares.

2. Because their complaints are irrelevant

3. What good is that gonna do? Complain to whom?

4. Because nobody cares, nobody will help when you do, and more often than not you are ridiculed for complaining or told to just “Man Up”

5. To complain is to seek validation for a grievance. If you expect yourself to be taken seriously by others, you don’t need to seek validation.

   Culturally, we have a lot of problems with taking women seriously, so women are more likely to feel they need their grievances validated.

   Ironically, you may only be noticing the complaints of people you take less seriously.

6. After the 2nd or 3rd “Suck it up and deal with it” I realized I was never going to get a different answer. We depend on ourselves from a young age a lot.

7. Nobody is coming to save you as a man. If you’re not willing to get off your ass and work, you will die alone or end up homeless. We have to be accountable for our shortcomings as men. Women on the other side can sometimes be saved. We don’t have that luxury.

8. IME women often vocalize their grievances in order to be validated and get empathy/support from others. They are socialized to do this and if you are a man you have often gotten scolded for trying to fix the problem instead of just listening.

   Men are not socialized this way, to complain is to be weak, to expose your vulnerability, to admit you have been wronged, swindled, outsmarted or just put competed in life. These are all perceived as negative.
   Also complaining rarely if ever solves a problem. Men frequently want to solve the problem. If another person. can help them solve it or if they need advice from someone they trust and respect they will confide in them but it’s not “complaining”

9. # Because everything you say can and WILL be held against you.
   So go fish for ammo elsewhere. Your lady friends have overflowing stockpiles.

10. I stopped asking for things when it didn’t matter. Happened with my parents. Happened with my ex. Once, she asked what I wanted to do for Thanksgiving. I said I wanted something low key. We don’t go anywhere, no one visits. Fifteen minutes later she came back to tell me we were going to see her family six hours away.

    So yeah.

11. I’ve tried complaining. I’ve tried complaining to my Mayor, the City Council, to the State legislature, on the streets, on rooftops, on front lawns… **nobody listens.**

    The problems don’t get fixed, most people don’t care, and the world spins on, because it also doesn’t care.

12. because no one cares so why bother.

13. >Additionally I’m sure women face more widespread issues daily

    That’s the answer to your question. It’s meaningless to complain about anything if everybody downplays your issues and just drops a “But what about women”. You are part of the problem.

14. I think men realize that complaining contributes nothing and will usually not solve a problem.

15. Suffer in silence

16. Because complaining never solves anything, just makes shit seem worse. And no one really cares anyway.

    Not to mention, many of us were raised to be self reliant and to be a rock that can weather all storms.

    No matter how bad I think I might have it, people have dealt with a lot worse than me. I try to keep perspective and not piss and moan feeling sorry for myself.

17. Because complaining is pointless. Be proactive to a situation, sitting around just moaning about it isn’t going to change anything

18. No one gives a shit. A man is alone with his problems.

19. this sub refutes your entire premise.

20. Men generally don’t complain, because early on they learn that no one cares. For me it was as early as elementary school. Went to the teacher to complain about a girl who was bullying me. Teacher didn’t care and did nothing. Well one day she slapped me for no reason. Just hauled off and slapped me. So I punched her in the face and then got suspended and almost expelled. Despite the letting the teacher know.

    Once I learned that they don’t care, I realized I had to figure it out on my own. I am sure other guys have experienced something similar very early on in life.

21. Because 9/10 nobody actually gives a fuck about a mans emotional/mental state. So, we have just learned to deal with shit.. take a breath and carry on. It’s a sad reality, but why do you think mens suicide rates are so high. Theres no other outlet or escape, and for some men, they just can’t deal with it anymore, so their out/escape is death.

22. “Anything you say can be used against you”

23. A part of it is feeling like you’re fighting an ocean wave if apathy from everyone, but it’s more complex than just that.

    Men are also expected to solve their own problems by both other men and all women. What is a man told when his GF or wife cheats? That sucks, hit the gym, talk to a therapist. Best friends might talk shit about the cheating whore, but it’s less venting and talking about feelings and more about moving the fuck on. Women also do the same for their girl friends when a man cheats but they do not have the same priorities like moving on and instead more venting, insults may vary lol.

    If a man is abused, almost nobody is going to help him. There are no resources. There is no network. His best friend of 30 years may want to help him but that friend’s GF or wife says no and that’s now an ultimatum of her or his friend. The expectation is “he chose her, now he has to live with consequences” whereas a woman who trusts the wrong man is a victim of his lying, cheating, and abuse and needs our sympathy.

    Speaking as a man who was abused by a woman when I was younger, her method of avoiding even being talked to police was genius: she’d just disappear for a few hours. Police might ask me what happened, not always though, and there would be no follow up. Each time I was told to leave by the cops, even called by some cop manager/supervisor and told to stop calling them. One cop gave me a domestic violence pamphlet which listed shelters, most were women only and the only ones that were not were homeless shelters and 20 miles away. I couldn’t leave even though I wanted to, cops didn’t care. They never arrested my abuser, but they arrested me for preventing her from hitting me in the face and kneeing my testicles. I spent 3 days/4 nights in jail for not allowing a woman to abuse me AND I have a misdemeanor on my record as a result. That shit shows up on background checks for jobs and renting apartments. I’ve gotten more sympathy from internet strangers about this than people that heard and witnessed the shit. The judge even made a comment about my size, that I “could kill someone by falling on them” because I’m a large man. I’m tall and fat, I’m not a woman-beater goddammit. I can be scared of an unpredictable drug addict that wants to kill me and yells it even if she is a woman goddammit.

24. Because society doesn’t care about our problems, we are told to man up and deal with it ourselves. When we do actually tell people they lose respect for us. It doesn’t fix our problems and we are stuck doing the emotional labor of consoling someone about OUR problems when we are the ones that need help.

25. Because it’s unattractive. Men are expected to “walk it off” or fix it themselves.

26. Here’s a short version of one of my experiences that resulted in me being less vocal about my problems:

    Got SA’d by a woman at 15, tried to report it and was told it wasn’t a problem, sought to end myself and was told “iT gEtS bEtTeR” in lieu of *actual* help (bc that costs money), got SA’d again but by a man, and when asked why I’m not actively seeking a relationship anymore, I lie and say that I’m probably just lazy when the reality is that I have *severe* trust issues that therapy didn’t help resolve because a therapist basically said my problems were not with what other did to me but what I did to put myself in those situations. On top of all that, I’m an average at best looking Bi man, so dating in general isn’t a positive for me. Doesn’t matter that I make great food, have varying hobbies to broaden my skills in an entertaining way, even dedicate time to play live music for people at a local spot…nope, turns out looks *are* everything, regardless of whatever stupid platitude someone want to regurgitate at me.

    So yeah…I’m about ready to live out my days in a lakeside cabin with a few dogs while the rest of the world can burn itself down for all I care.

27. Because no one gives a damn. The fact that you had to clarify that you are not trying to diminish women’s issues just illustrates this. If you try to create anything that is just for men, it typically triggers a barrage of vitriol from people who believe that for any man to have his issues validated and taken seriously is to somehow attack the opposite sex. Most men are taught from birth to be stoic or, at the very least, not to burden others with their thoughts, feelings, needs, or problems. Just as many women are unfairly valued for their looks and ability to bare children, men are usually valued for their ability to provide. Any issues we may have are often taken as weakness that diminishes our value as people.

    Both sexes have issues both unique and in common that deserve to be taken seriously and treated as well as deserve the right to be validated and respected as human beings rather than breeding stock and equipment.