In the 26 years I have been on this earth, I have found that relationships continue to be one of the best places to learn major life lessons. And of the life lessons one can learn when dealing with relationships, heartbreak is probably somewhere at the top of the list. I have been fortunate enough to share my heart with many great men, both as friends and as partners, and they have taught me many things. However, nothing I’ve experienced in the realm of relationships will top finally bolstering the courage to tell someone “I love you,” and hearing this as their response: “I don’t know…I don’t know how I feel…I don’t know how to respond.” And if hearing that response just once wasn’t heartbreaking enough, I’ve heard it multiple times…from multiple men in my life.
Over the past few years, I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on those very words: “I don’t know.” At first, I felt anger. I felt those words represented no bigger emotional cop out, or deflection. However, the more I look at those three small words through the lens of masculinity development (and the more I talk with close male friends), the more I’ve begun to fear that there may be a painfully simple shred of honesty to them. What if some men truly don’t know how to express themselves because they quite literally don’t have the words?
Social researchers such as Jack Mayer, Peter Salovey, Dan Goleman, Steve Hein, and many others have written extensively on the concept of “Emotional Intelligence” (“EI” for short). By definition, “Emotional Intelligence” is “an innate ability which gives us our emotional sensitivity and our potential for learning healthy emotional management skills” (http://eqi.org/history.htm). Hein, himself, goes on to hypothesize that there exists a duality between a person’s “potential EI” and their “actual EI.” His theory is that every child is born with a natural potential to sense, perceive, and interpret the emotions of others; obviously, the level of natural ability varies from person to person. Hein goes on to explain that one’s “actual EI” is continuously shaped by the environment they grow up in, their life occurrences, and their personal development.
Let’s say a male child is born with an innate ability to interpret and communicate emotions. And then, let’s say, that male child starts learning the “lessons” that many young boys do about “what it means to be a man.” As he grows up, his “actual EI” may or may not be negatively impacted by any combination of factors: intra-family dynamics, lack of male role models, negative male role models, peer pressure, reinforcement of traditional gender roles by authority figures, the media’s representation of men and masculinity, etc. Young male children may also be “taught” what jobs or careers are “acceptable” for them to pursue (i.e. policeman, fireman, businessman, doctor), and which ones tend to be “unacceptable” (i.e. teacher, nurse, artist). These “life lessons” may then impact what courses young men pay more attention in throughout their educational career. How often have we heard headlines and statistics claiming that men still outnumber women in the math and science sectors of the world? How come we don’t hear about men outnumbering women in education, foreign languages, or literature (all places they could bolster their personal vocabulary)? For the better part of their first 18 years, many men suffer at the hands of negative male socialization patterns that may stunt the exploration of their inner emotional life in favor of rationality, logic, and fact.
Come high school and college, these men begin to enter the world of serious relationships, so starting their journey of learning how to build intimacy with another person. Enter Dr. Jim O’Neil’s male gender role conflict theory. Perhaps one of the most challenging elements of MGRC is the element of restrictive emotionality. The most cursory review of men’s issues literature will uncover research linking men’s repression (or avoidance) of emotion, and their lack of help-seeking behavior, to a variety of health problems; in fact, most statistics show that men suffer from higher rates of substance abuse, higher rates of completed suicides, and a lesser likelihood of seeking out resources. So now, potentially for the first time in their lives, these 18- to 22-year-old men have partners asking them to describe how they feel. The intent of the “I don’t know” response very well may be the instinctual male reaction to being asked his feelings, but the impact of such a response can cause a lot of heartache.
The whole point of my rant on emotional expression boils down to this: Many of the interventions and programmatic efforts designed to engage and interrupt the negative effects of male socialization and MGRC deal specifically with providing men a platform through which they can begin to communicate their feelings in a healthy manner. We, as educators, seem to want nothing more than for today’s men to open up, to express, to let the guard of masculinity down. We create discussion groups; we host conferences; and we ask the intentional (yet incredibly difficult) questions. We create counseling and therapeutic techniques and approaches specifically tailored to unraveling the knots that make up hegemonic masculinity. But where in those interventions and discussion groups are we teaching men the emotional vocabulary they will need to communicate their inner thoughts? Why must we spend so much time focusing on “interventions,” when we could very easily start the developmental shift earlier on in these men’s lives by role modeling healthy outlets for communication and emotional expression?
To “not know” one’s emotions is completely natural and okay; but in the realm of healthy, sustained relationships, we eventually must be able to communicate our feelings with our partner (whatever they may be). For some men, the simplicity of this request may prove to be a more difficult challenge than we first thought. As we continue to further explore best practices in the world of men’s issues, I would like to challenge us to find small moments to pause and go back to the basics of human language and expression. And, maybe break out a thesaurus every once and awhile—just to keep us on our toes.
Laurel Dreher is a Coordinator of Residence Education at Roger Williams University. She also serves as one of the Special Projects Coordinators for the Men & Masculinities Knowledge Community. She can be reached at ldreher@rwu.edu.
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