Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi fellow men. PS (ladies you can chime in if you wish to add anything too) open to all.
I wanted to get a bit of understanding from the men out there. What do you think about being a man with autism? Is it hard? What support do you get? What do you struggle with? For example aggression, anger management, exclusion, social isolation etc.
What do you wish people understood more about being a man? What is being a man to you? What values create a man?
I personally have certain values I will list here:
- treat women with respect and kindness. I believe women deserve to be treated with respect. I always hold doors open for women and let women go first on the bus etc. Just common decency to me but just little things that make me me.
- doing what I believe to be right. I try and follow my heart and do what I know or feel is the right thing to do in the moment.
- patience. Being patient and taking my time with things. Not rushing into the first thing that comes my way but rather instead taking my time and letting things take they’re natural order.
- no tolerance for drugs. Having the inner strength to say no to drugs and being willing to set those boundaries with those I meet through my everyday travels.
- self control. Having the ability to control my self and not act on the first impulse that I feel. Having the self control to stop myself from making daft decisions (ties into next point below).
- maturity. Having wisdom in years and experience to set an example to younger folks of how to treat others and be in the world.
So yeh this was just some ideas, just a fun topic nothing serious. Feel free to share your own values and experiences of being a man.
I find it a lot easier than being a woman with autism (I'm a trans man) as people increasingly leave me alone in public now I'm looking more male / less female. In general people seem less interested in policing my behaviour, which means I don't feel as much need to mask.
Ah, the "terrible two's"
I fondly remember mine trying to jump high enough to dislodge my ear defenders, unsuccessfully...
And being "evil daddy" I used to say No cheerfully, and with good humour..
Line Item 8 of course, allows me to arbitrarily determine that your husband is a statistical anomaly! "The exception that proves my rule" as it were.
LIne Item 11 of course, should be; Chromosome confers the special abilty to "mansplain".
Yellow tree 118 said:- treat women with respect and kindness. I believe women deserve to be treated with respect. I always hold doors open for women and let women go first on the bus etc. Just common decency to me but just little things that make me me
I like your post, although I don’t participate in the discussion about experience of manhood because I dont have any, I have some observations. Sadly, more and more women don’t want to be treated with respect, also they don’t want to treat men with respect. Instead they put their best effort to make men feel useless. Once I had a disagreement with my long term friend. She said, that we don’t need men and men suck. Then I told her: ok! Good! Then don’t call for a plumber or electrician if something is broken at home (great majority in these professions are occupied by men), don’t call for help if you have to pick a fridge to a third floor and there is no elevator. Don’t expect stocks to be delivered to the shop or bus to be on time (bus and truck drivers are also mostly men) and don’t expect someone to protect your a** in case if there is a war. Stop using devices that were invented by men. That made her speechless and then she had angry outburst and didn’t speak to me for some time. But I know I’m right. I always say, in our society we need both men and women. We only don’t need hatred. What I like in men is exactly their strength both physical and ability to control emotions.
I Sperg said:7. This chromosome makes me better at saying "NO you don't need feeding YET" to this cat, wheres my partner who lacks the chromosome is totally helpless in such situations.
Not all owners of the Y chromosome have this strength. When my daughter throws a tantrum because she wants something that is forbidden, my husband is helpless. But I just don’t care. NO is no and that’s it. Reasoning with 2,5 y/o throwing tantrum is I think impossible so it’s just “no”. Without any emotions.
Being a man to me means that in the genetic lottery of life, I won the covetted Y chromosome.
This magic collection of proteins confers many advanatges over those who lack such an advantage, a few of which (for your education and amusement) I shall list here:
1. No periods!!
2. Can pee covertly whilst standing up.
3. Can reverse park a car.
4. I have physical advantages when it comes to physical combat, and other high energy human situations.
5. This chromosome also seems to be the main carrier of logic, reason, and proportion!
6. This chromosome often seemingly increases the owners abilty to thrive in chaos and filth, which significantly reduces the amount of housework, cosmetics and shopping that I need to expend time on even when liivng alone, allowing more time for imporatnt man things and projects.
7. This chromosome makes me better at saying "NO you don't need feeding YET" to this cat, wheres my partner who lacks the chromosome is totally helpless in such situations.
8. The chromosome seems to inhibit me from focussing on my weakness and allows me a certain amount of blessed ignorance and belief in my own superiority to all challeneges, and it works despite lifes best efforts to prove me wrong!
9. The chromosome gives me the abilty to solder, weld, do a reasonable mortise and tenon joint, and on a good day, line up an if strip wthout test gear.
10. The chromosome allows me to carry on perfroming a task flawlessly and calmly whilst under a barrage of criticism by a woman, drill instructor, fellow engineer etc, whereas lack of the Y chromosome, means that a person can be stopped dead in their tracks from performing any useful activity for up to a full 24 hour period with a single well (or poorly, or accidentally) chosen word..
As always with my observations on life, "Your Mielage May Vary"
Yellow tree 118 said:- treat women with respect and kindness.
I try to do the same but in the UK I get a lot of odd looks or hear comments after of "he was creepy" - I suspect it is because of how I hold my expression and talk slightly different to neurotypicals.
Sometimes if feels as if there is nothing I can do that does not result in being shunned by females unless they actually know me.
The one thing I wish was different is for women to explain what they want rather than endless games around social or romantic situations where I took many years to learn the basic rules.
Yellow tree 118 said:- no tolerance for drugs.
I avoid these other than medication. I suspect I would become too easily addicted so refuse to give them a chance.
Yellow tree 118 said:- self control.
I've worked really hard on the mental discipline for this and it has been very successful for me professionaly and personally. It took decades to master but is worth it.
Yellow tree 118 said:- maturity.
I've sounded older/wiser when I was young but found many other things that I was late in growing out of (enjoying cartoons and reading comics being some). I've always been much more sensible and practical about other things due to my approach to them (ie research and consider the angles before persuing) which got me treated like the grandad in work situaitons.