On twitter I once replied on a big account's post about men's mental health that if any man wanted a compliment that they could reply and I would compliment them.
Hundreds of replies started coming in from all kinds of different people.
Every single responder I researched their account and tried to find something nice to say about that person.
Can I compliment their physical appearance in a photo? Can I compliment an action they took or something they said on the platform?
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And with some of those it really wasn't easy. There were people responding who I wouldn't usually want much to do with and who would not have been kind to me if they'd met me in most other contexts. But regardless the point was to give everyone a chance so I pressed on where it was difficult and wouldn't otherwise have really wanted to compliment those people.
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But there were some accounts I still think about that were even worse. Their entire online presence consisted of ironic facades and hate. I pored over these accounts looking for something good. I spent days pondering them. Thinking about them as I went to work on the bus or shopping.
And to this day I don't know what they expected or imagined I might say? I ended up so angry and sad with some of them I told them as much. Others I just felt I had to "overlook".
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It's heartbreaking to think that there are men just walking around out there being the most awful people possible, probably as a shield to stop anybody truly saying something about their core that could hurt them, but also that they're desperate for just a tiny bit of kindness that nobody can find a way to show to them because not only can they not stop hurting others, but that they can't even demonstrate a single other thing about themselves.
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I feel like I failed those people and made a permanent place in my heart for them, even if they don't know it, and even if those same people are now rabidly clamouring to ruin other people's lives.
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@zeska Now ask yourself why this only applies to men.
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@RickiTarr is that a request to talk about gender dynamics? I'll happily talk about that with you, just wanted to check first.
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@RickiTarr @zeska does it? I mean Marjorie Taylor Greene exists. I get that a large percentage of men are awful but all women aren’t some panacea of virtue.
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@fistfulofdave @zeska That's not what I'm talking about. People, myself included in the past, often have more sympathy for a broken man, than a broken woman. He can't help it, he had a rough childhood, his wife left him, he's sad. These kinds of things apply to everyone, especially women, POC, LGBTQ+ ect, that society is actively working against. I am all for being a sympathetic society that gives people chances, but equally. Also this kind of attitude is rife in abusive relationships, been there, done that, not keeping the t-shirt.
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@RickiTarr @fistfulofdave are you saying that the issue you're reading into this subject is that we shouldn't shut women out of talks about mental health?
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@zeska @fistfulofdave I mean, obviously everyone should be included. My issue is with the rhetoric that often surrounds this. Women usually end up being to blame for why men are being ignored in the mental health sphere. I don't understand where this is coming from, for one. Are there Women who don't want their men in therapy, maybe, but I don't think this is the problem it's made out to be. My other issue is people who don't want to actually change, but want to use this as an excuse for bad behavior, an off branch of weaponized Incompetence. Much like Elon's I'm not a Nazi, I'm Autistic. In the end, I believe that change doesn't come from the outside. It's not women's responsibility to get men in therapy or give them more compliments.
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@RickiTarr @fistfulofdave it's not women's responsibility to do that no. But I do think that we (everyone, not just women) can create space to talk about men's mental health just as we can create space to talk about women's mental health.
If you create both of those spaces people who don't want the other gender in their space don't have to compete for that space in order to access any support. Usually it's the women who are more choosy about this, for reasons I'm sure you don't need to get into
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@RickiTarr @zeska Fully agree with all of this. My response was a tangent and not nuanced enough as a knee jerk reply the reply of “notice it’s all men”. I should have expanded my thought more or better not posted it. Apologies for the derailment.
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@zeska Wow, that is… amazing and heartbreaking. I hope it didn’t take too much of a toll on you.
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@rasterweb it's still out there somewhere if you want to go digging around on that hellsite!
It was fine really.. a lot of work. I couldn't do it every month.
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@zeska No hellsite for me... I have a friend who used to post on Facebook "Hey friends, comment with a "." and I will give you a compliment!" and then he would find something great to say about everyone. (Those were friends of course, not strangers, but it was a fun thing to do.)
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@zeska @rasterweb Quite a project you took on there, huge props!
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@milesizdead @rasterweb it was only in the low hundreds of tweets, some terminally online people knock that out of the park every day
(If only more of them spent that effort being nice to each other!)
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@zeska Thanks for sharing this. I do this periodically with friends, like or comment and I'll tell you something nice. It gets trickier when strangers reply but I still do my best. I imagined you reading their profiles and comments and struggling to find a single thing to say - devastating.
I saw a reddit thread once where men talked about receiving compliments - how it happened so seldom for most that they remembered them years later.
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@Vidyala yeah that's what the original poster was talking about and there were men in her replies saying they couldn't recall receiving a compliment ever, which is what kicked that off
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@zeska That's so sad, and generous of you to offer. It's a lot of work doing it! Part of me read this and went "Oh, you haven't done that in awhile," and then I thought, "Is that really what you should be doing right now?" 😂
The thing with complimenting men IRL though is that I'd absolutely tell a man "Hey, that's a cool shirt," or "I like your hair," except I don't know if that man is safe OR will take it to mean I am hitting on him. We're all snarled in this trap together.
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@Vidyala yes. A gal pal whatsapp group was talking about it yesterday and it's so exhausting because lots of men will only accept that from women and can't or won't lift each other up. It's hard to express that you can't reciprocate if you're confronted with a lot of people who immediately take it as a relationship escalation if you say ANYTHING nice.
It was nice that the context was understood in that moment. I will (try to) give everyone one compliment and our interaction ends there.
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@zeska Yes! That's the only way to do it that feels "safe." I hadn't even considered the "why can't they compliment each other" angle. I'm glad you found a way to do it that was clearly defined and time limited. For the men who were actually impossible to compliment, I hope they've worked on fixing their hearts.
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@Vidyala @GeekAndDad not sure if you saw this thread but it touched on why it's hard for women to compliment men and why it worked this one time I did it.
My whatsapp group was also talking about why men don't compliment men and that's not a problem I can fix on my own. Maybe you can help and accept a challenge to compliment a man this week?
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@zeska @Vidyala Thanks. I did read that thread and it was interesting (and cool) that you found a dynamic that made it work.
It did make me sad that it generally doesn’t work, and that men supposedly don’t compliment other men.
Also sad that this dynamic makes it uncomfortable for me as a man to compliment women since I know they get more of this than they want and have to second guess the motivations of the men. (1/2)
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Because of that dynamic I feel more inhibited about complimenting women than complimenting men.
I’ll have to pay more attention about complimenting other men. Don’t think I do that less than I want to be, but it’s worth examining that assumption. (2/2)
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@zeska Wow.
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@GeekAndDad why wow? 😆
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@zeska Such a generous project on your part. Impressive.
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@GeekAndDad it was only a very temporary sacrifice of time that didn't cost me anything in the long term. Maybe you'll be inspired to do something like it!
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@zeska :) 👍🏼
I’m a life-long practicer and fan of Random Acts of Kindness which is part of why I appreciate this one of yours. It has a dimension that’s unusual for me that warrants further thought on my part. Thank you for sharing it.
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