Why it's hard to be an older man

Older guys have it hard, don't they? I mean it honestly because I think that there's so much about being an older man that's challenging. Firstly, you got women like me who are making demands on you and asking you to just frankly just show us a little bit of respect and value us. And then on the other hand, you've got lots of this kind of bro culture on platforms like TikTok that telling you that you need to be a manly man and you need to not reveal your feelings and you need to be tough and you need to show her who's boss and all this kind of stuff that frankly in this day and age feels really, really out of date. And then finally, you've got your upbringing, which for a lot of guys is about a dad who probably wasn't around very much, off working, so you didn't have great role models, or you may have had a dad who was frankly abusive. And some of us were lucky, and some guys were lucky, in that they had fathers who were present and around all the time, which frankly is what all men these days, young men, are encouraged to be like. But for most older guys, they didn't have any of that. And so when they come up against these kind of older women that, you know, want to just have a good time and, and want somebody in their life that's just just going to be nice and respectful and value them and, you know, just show them some kindness. It feels like a big ask because for a lot of them, they've just been used to being the person who brings home the bacon and isn't expected to do much else, right? And now we're asking guys to step up and help out around the house and do all this kind of stuff. You know, a lot of you are saying, well, why not just dump those women? And you know what, maybe that's what's happening. Maybe a whole lot of women are getting dumped just because they're asking for stuff that should just be, frankly, just the stuff that everybody does. But I think that toxic masculinity has a lot to answer for, and I do actually genuinely say that one needs to think as a man what it is that, you know, you want to be like, because I think it doesn't serve anybody these days well to be that kind of old-fashioned guy who frankly is a bit of a jerk.