At risk of being a dork I’ll also compare this to Star Trek (largely because OP is a clear fan). Both series are really timeless and impactful imo because they portray people as almost supremely emotionally intelligent. Everyone is very professional when they need to be - capable of great emotional restraint, but also deeply empathetic and caring and ‘tender’ when the time is right.
I mean Gimli is supposed to be the “emotional hothead” of the Fellowship and he’s literally more chill and emotionally controlled than most of the people you run into working retail
That's why Star Trek is sometimes referred to as "competency porn."
It's almost embarrassing to admit, but TNG was a factor for me in finding emotional maturity.
I was a happy, naive child that was lucky to get to 8 before everything sorta fell apart. Parents divorced, sexual abuse from within the extended family by different people, having to toughen up at school due to the emotional issues starting to crop up, abandoned by a parent because of their addiction, and even the social pressure during the satanic panic (this was obviously the 80's).
Somehow, I did manage to keep some of the happy-go-lucky and naivete, but otherwise I had a rough time reigning in my temper and sometimes would break into tears from being overwhelmed (alone, obviously, because I had to be manly).
When I got into watching TNG, I really admired Picard as a character template, and worked on some of my own self perceived character flaws, and why I acted the way I did. Essentially, looking for the causes and not the symptoms. It was the start of a growth that continues still. His morality and introspection as an archetype gave me hope.
A therapist surely would've been a better way to go about it, but those weren't really much of an option for us back then.
Television in general can be "competency porn". Nobody speaks to each other in real life with the attentiveness and thoughtfulness of TV show characters. Most people are devoid of empathy and bad at conversation. If you try to be as attentive and witty and empathetic as characters on TV (the ones at least that aren't written to be terrible people a la IASIP) people will think you're autistic.
Its so relaxing
capable of great emotional restraint, but also deeply empathetic and caring and ‘tender’ when the time is right
Then there's Beverly who wanted Worf to live as a cripple and would deny him both an honorable death and a chance at a normal life, all because she couldn't reconcile her views with those of a different culture. That episode still pisses me off to no end.
I'll never forget the time I ran into an old friend of mine and I went to give him a hug and he awkwardly laughed and said uh, no, and shook my hand.
We're still very good friends and we send several texts to each other every week.
But it's a terrible feeling when you instinctively go to hug someone with zero sexual feelings and get instantly and reflexively rejected. I don't blame my friend. I blame our fucked up culture.
'Murica: where we love our guns more than we love our school children. Is it any wonder men can't hug here.
My goddamn dad does this to me. Like I made a conscious decision years ago to give him hugs because I felt like it was bullshit to not show him affection. After a few years he started intercepting me and now forces the handshake.
He also became radically conservative in that time...
To be fair, you might be trying to fuck him. A handshake is safe.
That’s fucked up dude. You deserve for your dad to hug you. Everyone does
Maybe he's taking those Alex Jones manly man pills
I don't know your friend, but I just don't like people touching me in general. I've had people get upset that I won't hug them, but my boundaries are valid and should be respected. Not everyone wants to hug.
I understand where you're coming from, and your boundaries should be respected. Which is why I did not make an issue out of it. Like I said, we're still very good friends. And when he waved me off I just laughed awkwardly back and went with it.
And...I know him really well. It isn't that he doesn't like being touched. He, like a lot of men in America, is super phobic about anything within 500 miles of "gay".
Same, I don’t even like handshakes. I’ll happily accept a fist bump. I’m different around my wife and kid, because I don’t open up like that for just anyone—not even the rest of my family, long story I don’t feel like telling. Doesn’t mean I’m not emotionally unavailable; on the contrary, my coworkers are happy to have me on their team because I am very much the opposite of that, I am empathetic and just want everyone’s day to go by as smoothly as it can.
I think you have to accept that people have different boundaries on how they want to show affection to different kinds of relationships, and that this doesn't mean they don't love you.
I've been very clear in my replies that I do respect those boundaries. Some people don't want to be touched. This has been heard, understood, respected by me, and there is zero counter-argument from me. There is no lack of understanding or need to correct me on this point.
And the incident I recalled did no long-term damage to our friendship. It was a hurtful moment, I got over it, I didn't push the issue, and we're still friends.
The point of the OP's post and my first comment is to try and address how unfortunate it is that the cultural default is: men hugging is icky and gay.
I agree with a lot of what you say, but your last line is ridiculous. Everyone in LotR was armed to the teeth, and that was no hindrance to expressing their feelings for one another.
Well yeah it was a war. Everyone was armed to the teeth because war. Except in the shire where nobody was armed because peaceful land of homes.
I'm used to hugging my friends, and saying 'Love ya, bud.' I never thought that was weird, as my dad is fairly physically affectionate, until my high school girlfriend had her dad give us a ride. He was absolutely bewildered at the behavior as I said goodbye to my friends.
I don't hug no matter how non-sexually. No touching pls.
Some people just don't like hugs
Shaking hands is great.
I don't know why everyone is all over hugs and are like "oh you're a weirdo for not being comfortable hugging me".
I'll hug my guy friends but a handshake is just better.
Hug female friends handshake guy friends. (Girls are shit at shaking hands).
That’s what happens when a gentleman who fought in WWI and dreamt of a cottage writes fantasy.
Sure, the last time I tried to be tender and emotional like this my wife mocked me for crying. Do I wish for close relationships like this with my fellow men, yes but there's no room for it for some of us. Toxic masculinity is also expressed by the women in our society (USA)
I mean, the problem here is that if you want emotionally available men you have to treat men better.
Good luck getting people to do that.
Look up Troy Hawke on Instagram and use his act as a guide.
I wish there were more people like OP, because the only way I can make people who are neither my friends or family recognize that I'm being treated unfairly is by getting angry. Humans have a gigantic range of emotions they may feel and yet most of them think that just because you belong to one gender or another only a portion of those emotions are valid.
This type of relationship is pretty common in war. You and the squad end up "in the shit" and now you have all crossed the boundaries of what civilians call "manliness". You are free, unimpeachable, the manliest thing, a real warrior, a soldier in battle. The things you do now define manliness, you are writing the rules. They can call you whatever, you will reply with the sort of laughter that silences fools.
People die around you. The sound of another man's voice becomes poetry to you. How much longer will you hear his voice? Who knows, tell him a shitty joke. Sit on his lap for a gag, do whatever. Drink in his presence, press his flesh against yours, be alive together, try to keep him in your memory, tomorrow we all may die. Has anybody seen those pictures of soldiers from the American Civil War all hanging out and mugging for the camera? Acting all "gay" with each other? That's what war does to men, sometimes, probably not that often, I fear.
Somebody online with a military background once remarked about the safest he's ever felt, including in civilian life, was when he was in some tent in a war zone with the rest of the platoon, everyone in their sleeping bags, crammed in the tent together like a litter of kittens in a box. Sure, they were in the death zone, for real, but he was warm and snug, surrounded by armed badasses who would come to his aid at once if anything nasty went down. He said he slept like a baby, that he's never felt that sense of security since, not even safe in bed as a civilian, later.
It means a lot to me that this book, TLOR, was pretty much written by the Great War. Tolkien went to that war, against his own will, compelled by shame campaigns, not even the law, in spite of his own convictions, and he did not have some safe posting at the base, no, he was at the Somme. He saw the worst of it, probably missed death by inches several times, saw mud and blood, was deafened and battered, only to survive at last, coming home as changed as Frodo.
He watched men charge into machine guns like mice into a blender, watched them die of trench foot and the stupid ways war kills you without even glory or honor to show for it, saw that sometimes courage is just hiding in your little hole and not screaming when the tanks roll over. He saw Mordor in person. No man's land.
Then he came home, and did he write some edgy darkness? No. He wrote this thing, this fantasy, with its message of hope that evil can be vanquished, and that men can be good, yes, even when they seem utterly lost to goodness. This is somehow the lesson that the War to End All Wars had taught him. He had nothing left to prove, so he made a pretty, frivolous thing, for children, but couldn't help it, he couldn't help making something bigger than that. He knew how intimate men become with each other under fire, and it ended up in the book.
That is the only thing he wanted to remember, that unexpected love when suffering and death are right on top of you. I wonder who Legolas was to him? Somebody young and beautiful, who deserved to live a thousand years, but didn't, probably. They shall not grow old.
We shouldn't need the machine guns coming at us to hug our friends, that's probably what he wanted the world to know.
Beautifully written and thank you for providing this insight. I have not been to war so it can be easy to miss the nuances
lotr nerds are the worst
You're the worst.
Whoa, this comment thread is wild. Sorry to those who have to deal with shame. I also don't like being hugged or kissed, but that's true regardless of their gender. That said, you should be allowed to cry, and you should at least be allowed to express your feelings. It's not a sign of weakness, and if anything, a sign of bravery.
But, reading your comments, grateful to not have a wife who judges my masculinity. I still gotta do my part around the house and stay respectful, but if I needed to vent over a bad day, she's all ears. Thanks for that.
The fellowship, especially the human members were made up of aristocrats doing things for honor and Valor. But most humans in 4th age me were living in squalor, a shell of a former great empire and people. Even the movies did a decent job of showing the distrust, violence and squalor and curruptability of average men.
All that said yes show less toxicity and more role model responses to hard situations is a good idea. But drama sells.
Excuse me? Doing it for honor and valor?
They were doing it to save middle earth from a tyrant who would have enslaved everyone under his rule.
That was one of Tolkien's concepts, that a king should protect his people and lead by example. There is no battle in which Aragorn didn't lead from the front.
The 4th age was one of peace and prosperity. Please share the source for the peoples of middle earth living in squalor.
If a king can't protect and take care of his people then they are better off without him, that's what got heads rolling around Europe at a certain point
Well you definitely right about the motivation. I guess my thoughts were 1. all the elves could have just bailed on ME but some stuck around. 2. Aragon in the books always intended on being king and was further motivated by elronds requirement to marry his daughter so as much as he may have done it to lead from the front it was still a game of houses. 3. Overall you absolutely right about the forth being prosperous i had the industrialisation of bag end in mind in particular. Yes sams family fixes it over 3 generations and it was 1 town trading with sauromon, but it def was the exploitative example I thought of. 4.Other than the wizard and hobbits it was all nobility in the fellowship etc... last is the "height of humanity" were the early numenorians so what was left of civilization by the lotr saga anyway was diminished
Thanks for checking my generalization I should be more careful not to twist tokens intent
Please, I don’t accept hugs. I dont want kisses. Please, don’t touch me. There are plenty of other ways to show affection, I can do that, but please, do not touch me, I dont like it.
Nobody should force a hug or a kiss on anyone. As I replied to another commenter on here, as soon as he waved me off I dropped it and did not make an issue out of it. I respect your boundaries. If you don't want to be hugged, kissed, or touched that is 100% OK and nobody should pressure you into it, ever.
But try to understand that in the vast majority human relationships, hugs and the like are considered normal, healthy behavior. They are not considered a "creepy attack from a creepy creep". I'm not talking about random strangers copping a feel here. I'm talking about close friends and family.
Human touch is very, very important. Read up on Harry Harlow's monkey experiments.
I'm fairly convinced the lack of touch and general warmth in our culture is one reason we all hate and mistrust each other. I realize causes and symptoms get blurry in this arena (correlation vs causation and all of that) but it's fairly obvious people aren't giving or getting enough love and affection in their lives. There's so much hostility, repression, and isolating going on.
Harry Harlow’s monkey experiments…
Yeah, but some of us are in our 50s and we had the wire mother. It’s too late for us.
That’s a pretty Westernized view - it’s absolutely NOT a cultural norm to give close friends of either gender hugs in most Asian cultures. This includes societies that are very Westernized like Taiwan. It doesn’t make people any less friendly or emotionally vulnerable- but hugging is something we just don’t do.
Is that for everyone or just people outside of your comfort group?
I ask because a stranger touching me is very likely to draw back a figurative nub, but I love touch from my people. I'm kinda anti-kiss post covid, but I'm a hugger still lol.
I feel you though, everyone gets to have boundaries, and it isn't a rejection of affection to prefer non touch methods of showing it.
You get to express yourself in a healthier masculine way in Middle Earth because you're not worried about fucking driving an hour to work and back to make some asshole rich while you worry about if you're going to eat next week, all the while trying to numb your senses with substances and stave off the fear that at any time, an illness could ruin you and your family financially and put you on the street. At least in ME, the existential problems men face are quantifiable: there's an orc that wants to kill me, etc.
Capitalism makes you emotionally unavailable? What?
My dear, I don't think that's the problem here
Try reading “The Way We Never Were”. While capitalism isn’t the cause, it’s certainly a contributor in the whole idea of men not needing anyone, men being sole provider, separating men from the tribes that gave them that emotional or physical support…not just men but women too.
Okay, I'll admit, in a 2 sentence blurb, the connection might not seem "all there" but yes. Yes, the toxic world that is based in capitalism, our current paradigm and the one we're comparing to LOTR, dividing and conquering people along arbitrary lines all the while we're scrambling to get as much money as possible in order to fulfill some 60 year old notion about what being a man or what being a woman means, yes that turns people toxic and we express ourselves in toxic manners because of it.
Identify a problem you see with modern men and I can probably boil that point down to how it's capitalism motivated.
Side note: certain places in LOTR resemble real world medieval feudalism, such as Gondor. You'll note how toxic men from Gondor are. The economic system that drives us influences our behavior.
Fuck you I'm poor and angry
If capitalism is about competition, then the need to divide and display individual strength are characteristics reinforced by capitalism.
There was a TV show called Moonhaven where men were a bit more like this. It was cancelled after 1 season, of course.
Oh wow, Moonhaven sounds like an interesting show, even just for the approach to "utopia". Thanks for the tip!
With a hobbit on the cast!
No shaming at all! But I think it’s important to recognize that not all cultures express affection the same way.
One very poignant scene I remember well was when a Disney exec met the famous Japanese director Hiyao Miyazaki for the first time. The American exec rushed forward to hug them and I remember thinking that Miyazaki may have felt pretty uncomfortable with that. As an Asian American that spends a lot of time in both cultures I find that Americans tend to (for lack of a better word) impose their cultural norms on others - either through well meaning ignorance or cultural chauvinism I don’t know.
Edit - replying to Boozilla. Not sure if it worked.
well meaning ignorance or cultural chauvinism
A bit of both, I think.
They put the "gentle" in gentleman
Paraphrased from the last thread I saw about this: Women always want these types of men from LotR, but they never want to be like women from LotR: Strong, gentle, soft and loyal.
Wow, that's some incel shit...
So by your logic is the OP a femcel, or are you just embracing double standards? I encourage you to like whatever type you like, but try to understand that certain personality types "click" with certain personality types. If you want a specific type, then you ought to put in the effort to make yourself into the type of person who can support that type.
Lemmy is full of them. I might prefer Reddit...
How about don't assume all mean are sweaty horny jerks.
It's hard to set yourself apart when you're dismissed right from the start because of your identity. That's why lonely men kind comfort in the company of other men, cause men are less prejudiced towards men.
I welcome the ban. Equality means equal respect. I die on this hill proudly
r slash niceguys
