Emotional Repression and Male Friendship in Fandom Spaces
Oncoming rant about emotional repression in male friendship in fandom spaces: I've been thinking a lot about relational leadership in friendships with men recently while I read through bell hooks' The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love. I believe one of the hardest parts of healthy relational leadership in this arena is discernment and resultant grief and boundariedness with men who are not willing or able to grow into an emotionally liberated life along side you. As a man I've been around a lot of other men who were not modeled how to have healthy mutually emotionally nurturing friendship as a boy and go into shutdown from terror when faced with emotional vulnerability. I've wondered how much of this is especially true for autistic men who frequent chronically online fandom spaces who I've tended to befriend. There's only so much you can do when other people are not willing to engage from their side. Its sad and frustrating but sometimes the only thing you can do is try to model such things yourself and limit emotional investment if there isn't reciprocal engagement. I think the sadder thing is that for many men emotional disconnection and lack of reciprocity is actually what makes the most sense in terms of their overall life needs, social life, and trauma. I've had a very polarized experience with men who believe they're not good at emotions. About one half I've seen emotionally open up and start to soften. This typically happens when they already have began to do the work of deconstructing patriarchy in their life and happen to have good interpersonal chemistry and flow with me. On the other hand I've also had months of draining mutual frustration with men who do not have either. I wonder how my thoughts about this will evolve as I continue to read through the book. As someone who tends to socialize in fandom spaces, I'd also be particularly curious to hear about other people's experience with friendship with men and their emotional availability within fandom spaces. I'd also be curious about hearing about men's experiences of growth from a place of emotional repression and what aided or hindered them in that journey.
