Tom and Ale and I were talking at a restaurant and on our walk and my thoughts on confidence brought the topic up. Ale has a teenage son and all the issues that go with ownership of said item. I suspect that many of the issues younger guys, and a lot of older guys, have stems from lack of confidence. It is difficult to connect and have any level of intimacy to a relationship if you aren't confident enough to be vulnerable at times.
It takes confidence to say "I don't know", or "I don't think I am ready for that", or to express fear, doubt or uncertainty. As a younger guy I experienced all of those more frequently. Unfortunately anger and frustration appear to be on the approved list for male emotional display and sharing. But if you want to look confident, you work to suppress that. You try to appear that you have it all together on the outside. This severely retards your ability to bond with others, which creates a deeper sense of loneliness. At least that was part of my experience.
Of course one could argue who I to opine on confidence. Many folks would say I have more than is warranted. I am not sure exactly how I got to that place. Perhaps it has to do with testosterone- that same chemical that gives men the confidence to do brilliant things like jump their dirt bike over a canyon in a stiff cross wind or ignore reports of icebergs in the north Atlantic while piloting your big, shiny new ship. However, it seems that, at some point, I just decided to be confident. However, I haven’t talked to anyone else that believes you can decide to be confident.
I don’t know how you communicate to a teenage guy that if he was really tough he would show some vulnerability. I don’t know that machismo can be stretched in that direction. I expect women don’t experience the same social pressures to “be a man” and perhaps that is part of why they seem to socialize and bond more readily. Even the non-physical differences between men and women still fascinate me, but it seems like an even more fraught topic than politics or religion.
Another thing I have noticed that translates between languages is the differences between men’s and women’s voices. It seems like it must be more than just pitch. Perhaps I will research that topic. Another thing that spans languages is abrasive voices. There is a woman in my class that sounds like fingernails on the chalkboard to me when she speaks. And her voice is low in pitch. Her voice is abrasive in Spanish or Portuguese. Poor woman. Hopefully for her preferences in female voices in Brazil are different than the preferences of one overconfident American.
It takes confidence to say "I don't know", or "I don't think I am ready for that", or to express fear, doubt or uncertainty. As a younger guy I experienced all of those more frequently. Unfortunately anger and frustration appear to be on the approved list for male emotional display and sharing. But if you want to look confident, you work to suppress that. You try to appear that you have it all together on the outside. This severely retards your ability to bond with others, which creates a deeper sense of loneliness. At least that was part of my experience.
Of course one could argue who I to opine on confidence. Many folks would say I have more than is warranted. I am not sure exactly how I got to that place. Perhaps it has to do with testosterone- that same chemical that gives men the confidence to do brilliant things like jump their dirt bike over a canyon in a stiff cross wind or ignore reports of icebergs in the north Atlantic while piloting your big, shiny new ship. However, it seems that, at some point, I just decided to be confident. However, I haven’t talked to anyone else that believes you can decide to be confident.
I don’t know how you communicate to a teenage guy that if he was really tough he would show some vulnerability. I don’t know that machismo can be stretched in that direction. I expect women don’t experience the same social pressures to “be a man” and perhaps that is part of why they seem to socialize and bond more readily. Even the non-physical differences between men and women still fascinate me, but it seems like an even more fraught topic than politics or religion.
Another thing I have noticed that translates between languages is the differences between men’s and women’s voices. It seems like it must be more than just pitch. Perhaps I will research that topic. Another thing that spans languages is abrasive voices. There is a woman in my class that sounds like fingernails on the chalkboard to me when she speaks. And her voice is low in pitch. Her voice is abrasive in Spanish or Portuguese. Poor woman. Hopefully for her preferences in female voices in Brazil are different than the preferences of one overconfident American.
One other interesting labial phenomenon I have observed involves my friend Tom. The guy has an open mouth expression more often than most folks and probably more than any other engineer I have met. He credits it to a sense of naiveté. This has a negative connotation. I don’t think he lacks for worldly experience, especially compared to other engineers. I would describe it more as a sense of wonder. More things, surprise, delight, interest, disturb and otherwise provoke a response from the guy which usually starts with a big open mouthed expression of “WTF”. It is fun to watch. I wish I still had such an active sense of wonder. At any rate, despite the pictures, he is not a mouth breather. He is an intelligent guy who makes interesting conversation and had some interesting confirmations of the smoothing role of actual vs. contrived confidence in young men.
No comments:
Post a Comment