Men, what’s one small, seemingly insignificant thing you’ve noticed that can be a telltale sign of the difference between a genuinely good man and a bad one?

[u/AuthorConfident9386]

[u/LinguisticallyInept]

As a gay guy the one i always warn about is homophobia

theres generally 3 types of homophobes (and 2 are red flags)

• closeted homophobes, the ones with repressed homosexual tendencies that are trying to convince themselves that 'im not gay, i hate the gays, theyre disgusting so im not gay right?'... and wives end up as an accessory to them whilst they cheat on her at a seedy sauna; sucking away her life to provide 'heterosexual proof' to society

• masquerading misogynists, this tends to have a specific presentation where they believe 'effeminate men' (sometimes specifically bottoms) are lesser.... and at the core of that is the idea that 'masculinity' is worth more than 'femininity'... so women beware because they will not respect you

• historical trauma, these are the ones that deserve empathy... a lot of the time people can have abusive encounters and either extrapolate that experience to all gay guys (ex; getting groped by a colleague; maybe the only gay guy they know) or have experienced childhood SA and conflated gays with pedos... the problem is; youre not going to be able to feel out for these ones without treading on really difficult subjects

[u/Anothernamelesacount → u/LinguisticallyInept]

My personal experience with the last one is that it might eventually fix itself if those people manage to encounter gay people in a "safe" environment and learn that gay isnt a monolith, for better or worse.

it would be unfair to blame you for the weirdo that groped me as a kid and after meeting more gay people you usually get it through that its "people" first and "gay" second

[u/BLT_Trade_r → u/LinguisticallyInept]

I think the last one is interesting because if you extend that same thought to heterosexual interactions, would you say the same? There are a tremendous tons of heterosexual men and women who have been in bad relationships or have experienced trauma, rape, infidelity, financial exploitation, or other problems that would fall under the same theme. Nowadays, on the internet and even real life, it is super common to call these people incels, femcels, or all sorts of other insults because they have formed misogynistic or misandrist beliefs. Same scenario these are difficult subjects with flaring emotions and lack of ability of people to listen with an open mind. Most people here would probably call these red flags.

[u/mlance38 → u/BLT_Trade_r]

my hot take on this is with the incel crowd they are making a manageable wound worse through their echo Chambers. sympathy can still be given to them but they make it harder on themselves the deeper they go into their ideology

[u/BLT_Trade_r → u/mlance38]

Is the misandrous crowd different? What about the homophobes? That is the question I am getting at. People respond to trauma. But sure, you are correct; people are making it worse, but that's beside the point. It's easy to tell them to stop making it worse, but it's way harder to effectively get them to change because trauma is powerful. I have seen both sides of it in people I know.

Let's get out of the highly charged emotions and keep it simple: a person is stung by a bee; it was really painful, and they had a fairly bad but not deadly reaction. Now they have trauma; are they a bad person if they kill bee nests on their property and act all crazy and run away from them when they fly around them? Now they produce more CO2, and the bees are more likely to go after them if they're mad! People are yelling at them "you are overreacting". But generally, people do not think they are a bad person in this scenario. They just say the person has trauma, and that's why they act the way they do. Most rational people do not say what is wrong with them; why can't they stop overreacting?

In real life, emotions associated with love are some of the most powerful people have for obvious evolutionary reasons, and thus they have some of the most powerful effects.

[u/mlance38 → u/BLT_Trade_r]

so I'm going to answer this not with a logical frame of mind but as a person with a sense of spirituality, as corny as it is to say this,

the answer is love.

we can make up hypothetical situations all day long but at the end of the day the real question is are you willing to go through the nuance each individual has and be patient with them to help them heal?

As long as it isn't escalating to physical violence, where I have to actively defend myself (in which case anyone's justified in retaliation) I'm going to pull a Buddha /Jesus move and just care for them even if they're not in my physical proximity.

Even though they're just random internet strangers I will still show compassion to those who are trapped in the incel/homophobic/hate current. Sure I'm one person and I probably realistically won't make a dent in the grand scheme of things, but you know what definitely won't help, NOT doing that! And this isn't a passive action where I'm spiritually bypassing either, I am actively taking the time to see the train of thoughts that let up to these emotional reactions so when the time comes that I'm face to face with such individuals I'm now prepared, to hopefully, give them some peace of mind and know that there's one less person out there they have to fight against.

with your bee scenario, if the individual is receptive enough, I would try to help them remove the bees in a safe manner that doesn't harm them or the bees. and if they're the type that still react violently for a situation they can't control then they have to deal with the consequences of their actions on their own.

I will never condemn someone for trying to win an online argument with facts and logic but there is a real person at the other end, it takes wisdom and strength to realize that isn't always the best strategy.

Also the vast majority of these people are bots from troll farms. I guarantee you most of the hate you see online aren't from "real people"

[u/BLT_Trade_r → u/mlance38]

Even if your scenario was effective the primary problem is most people simply do not have the time to do all that to help someone. More to the point, in most of the cases I have witnessed, there are a good number of people trying to help, but you know what? All that help means nothing in the real world if the ways people try to help do not actually create a solution.

Example: plenty of people are praying for these people; there is no solution there because it doesn't actually create positive experiences on the issue. People have an unlimited amount of ineffective or even downright bad advice as well, based on whatever their own experiences and beliefs are. Most of it simply does not work and never would have.

Another example, people tend to have their own view of things and don't realize they are being somewhat selfish. For instance, anytime people will try to link up a date with a person to create positive experiences for an incel/femcel lets call them xcel. But the problem is there is no guarantee that date doesn't go horribly wrong or that either party is even attracted and many times I realize that person X just wanted to get person Y a date so they could reinforce their friend group or offload another person who was difficult to date with no consideration at all if person Y would like the xcel or if xcel would even like person Y. It's really complicated because if the person is an xcel, then in order to try to head that off, you need to warn person Y, but doing that in itself can cause the date to crash out; either person Y will refuse the date, or they will be on high alert during the date.

You are correct that not doing things or making them worse will not help but unfortunately that is the most common reaction. Either people just don't have the time / resrouces to help, or they actively attack the person and invalidate them driving them further into their belief.

[u/mlance38 → u/BLT_Trade_r]

I feel like we were getting off topic. I would like to remind you what the original question of this post was

"Men, what’s one small, seemingly insignificant thing you’ve noticed that can be a telltale sign of the difference between a genuinely good man and a bad one?"

Of course a person needs to do more than have good thoughts and feelings toward another, but those small graces is what differentiate a good man from a bad one.

[u/BLT_Trade_r → u/mlance38]

I mean, it still is on the point, which is this: is that last comment excusable or not? Is being an xcel or homophobe in the event of a trauma a red flag, or should someone have compassion for them? What's your verdict?

[u/mlance38 → u/BLT_Trade_r]

of course it isn't excusable.

Im just going to make sure my response isn't inexcusable as well

[u/aCanOfYamz → u/mlance38]

I'm not spiritual in anyway, yet I agree with you. I was raised Christian, and the biggest take away my mother ensured I learned basically boiled down to "is the actions of another affecting you physically? No? Then let them be". I'm not gay, but (apparently) act somewhat feminine, which has led to me being hit on, people asking if I'm gay/bi, the works. Never got offended (unless I was being bullied for who I am), and just brushed it off. When I see the hatred spread online, it saddens me. We as a species wanting to continue to exsist need to have more grace, and respect for their general neighbors and membors of the same race of being. Everyone has been hurt, stepped on, crushed to some level, its life. Support is the only way we grow as a people, and attain great things.

[u/TheLastBallad → u/BLT_Trade_r]

I mean... they kinda are still red flags. Having empathy for someone who developed a maladaptive belief doesn't mean liking them or wanting anything to do with them.

I mean, my stepmother was abused by her dad physically, and she developed a fear of tools(she can't feel safe if they aren't locked away) and narcissism, as any flaw was a trigger for those beatings, so now she refuses to admit to doing wrong because, subconsciously, that is a way to prevent being beaten.

Doesn't justify her abuse towards my siblings and I. Like I don't think a mother treating her 14 year old son as an active threat is acceptable. Nor the hours long screaming sessions that happened at least one a week. Nor her driving my sister to attempt suicide repeatedly. Nor the fact that my brother and I frequently didnt have a room and slept in the living room, because in our many many moves sometimes those places didn't have enough bedrooms(and, no, it wasn't that we were using the living room as a bedroom, it was still a livingroom primarily, we just slept there). Nor is her driving out my sister's husband(he was living with my stepmother, dad, and sister, the one who was driven to attempt suicide repeatedly, as my sister has serious health issues that prevents her from having a job, and he wasn't in a position to take on the medical stuff financially, so he was living with them while studying to enable him to get a job that would. I dont blame him for choosing to live somewhere else in the meantime, as literally every single one of us kids have made the same choice once we found a way)

Trauma might inform why the maladaptive behavior/belief formed, but it doesn't justify not working through the trauma like my stepmother refuses to. Nor would her treatment of me and my brother justify us being misogynistic, despite the fact that because of her I don't feel safe in situations where people can perceive my presence and have flashes of heartbeat skipping terror when a door slams.

Contrapoints has a good video on Incels if you want an example of what "empathy without excusing the behavior" looks like.

[u/jojoblogs → u/LinguisticallyInept]

You’re missing one imo but it’s not for men.

* straight-girl homophobes. They “love” gay men, but they fully subscribe to “fucking men = effeminate, effeminate = not a real man” so they don’t actually see gay men as real men. They can only get along with them if they pretend they’re actually women. They could not find a bisexual man attractive under any circumstances.

[u/Gleeforezt → u/LinguisticallyInept]

This criteria is only valid in the western world lol.