Scrolling through the comments on one of my videos last week, I ran into a line I’ve seen in men’s spaces everywhere:
“Nobody likes a weak man.”
It wasn’t said with malice. It wasn’t even surprising. It’s just… everywhere.
I see it all over social media - in Facebook and Reddit threads, Tiktok and Instagram reels. It's in men’s groups. In comment sections. In casual conversations with guys trying their best to make sense of themselves and the world they grew up in.
First, here's three quick gut-check questions:
Where do you notice yourself rehearsing strength so nobody sees hesitation?
When was the last time you swallowed a feeling because you didn’t want to look soft?
Who have you kept at arm’s length because you weren’t sure your “real” would be welcomed?
Quick note before we dive deeper:
If we’ve talked recently and you think I’m calling you out with this post… I’m not.
I’m writing about something I see men wrestle with everywhere I go — online, offline, and in men’s support spaces where guys are showing up to grow, not because they’re weak. This isn’t about one man. It’s about all of us.
Because that belief — “nobody likes a weak man” — isn’t a personality trait.
It’s a script. A mask. A learned instruction to act invulnerable so you stay accepted.
What I mean by performative masculinity
Performative masculinity says: don’t need, don’t flinch, don’t feel. It’s a protective role meant to keep you from being discarded. It buys short-term approval while quietly draining connection and honesty.
The mask beneath all the masks
Over the last few months, I’ve been writing about the masks men learn to wear:
- The Tough Guy
- The Stoic
- The Breadwinner
- The Lone Wolf
They look different on the surface, but they all share the same root: the same performance you were taught to play so you don’t get discarded. The performance usually starts young.
A boy cries and someone tells him to toughen up.
He hesitates or shows fear, and someone laughs.
He shares something tender, and someone tells him he’s “too sensitive.”
It doesn’t take long before he figures out the rules:
- Don’t flinch.
- Don’t feel.
- Don’t need anything.
- Don’t ask for help.
- Don’t show weakness — because weakness gets punished.
So he learns to perform strength instead of living from it.
He learns to wear a mask instead of showing a face.
And over time, that mask becomes so normal he doesn’t even see it anymore.
The weight of the performance
The funny thing is, we rarely name the exhaustion.
We just keep tightening the mask.
We hold our breath through heartbreak. We laugh off pain. We pretend we’re fine when we’re falling apart inside. We become the reliable one, the steady one, the unshakeable one.
And meanwhile:
Our relationships feel more distant.
Our internal world gets quieter.
Our sense of connection thins out.
Our emotional muscles atrophy.
And the numbers echo it: 12% of Americans report having no close friends (American Perspectives Survey, 2021). The U.S. Surgeon General’s 2023 advisory notes roughly half of adults report loneliness. CDC data via AFSP show men die by suicide 3.8× more often than women. The mask doesn’t just feel heavy; it isolates—and isolation is lethal.
We become strong in all the ways we think will impress people and weak in all the ways that matter. Not because we failed — but because we were trained this way. Performative masculinity isn’t an ego problem. It’s a survival strategy.
The misunderstanding at the center of all of this
We often think emotion means“weakness”. Telling the truth about fear. Admitting disappointment. Letting someone in. Feeling something at the wrong moment. But that’s not weakness. That’s humanity.
Weakness, in the truest sense, is being unable to tell the truth about your inner world. Strength isn’t the performance. Strength is the man underneath it.
But for a lot of men, the moments they did show that man underneath ended badly.
When vulnerability has been weaponized
A man commented on one of my posts recently:
“Every man I ever knew that told a woman something vulnerable…
it got thrown in their face later.
Women lose respect if you ever show weakness.”
And while I disagree with the conclusion, I don’t disagree with the pain underneath it. That wound is real. I’ve lived it too.
Years ago, in an argument with an ex, she threw one of my vulnerable moments back at me and called me a crybaby.
I felt it immediately.
It cut deep — not because of the word, but because I had trusted her.
I’d let her see something real, and in that moment it became ammunition.
It made vulnerability harder in future relationships.
It pushed me deeper into performative masculinity — into doing and saying what I thought would keep me safe, respected, or accepted.
But all it really did was push me further away from myself.
The more I masked, the more depressed I became. The more disconnected I felt.
And the more my behavior drifted into things I wasn’t proud of — choices rooted in shame and self-protection instead of honesty and connection. That’s the part people rarely talk about: the mask doesn’t just hide your feelings — it slowly erodes your sense of who you are.
So when a man says, “People who can hold vulnerability don’t exist,”
I get it. That wound comes from being hurt in the exact place he needed to be held.
And let’s be clear: throwing someone’s honesty back at them isn’t toughness — it’s a breach of trust. That’s not proof vulnerability is bad; it’s proof that person isn’t safe. The lesson isn’t “never be vulnerable.” It’s “be discerning about who has earned your truth.”
But the wound isn’t the whole story.
Safe people do exist — but you have to be intentional about finding them. Many of us were never taught how to recognize them.
We learned to survive, not to connect.
That’s why I didn’t argue with the man who wrote that comment. I won’t try to change his mind, but I’m not giving up on the idea that men deserve real connection.
So what does masculine vulnerability actually look like?
“Vulnerability” gets thrown around without definition.
A lot of men assume it means oversharing or losing control.
But masculine vulnerability is quieter and steadier.
Masculine vulnerability is telling the truth about what’s real without hiding, exploding, or abandoning yourself.
It can sound like:
- “I’m overwhelmed, and I need a minute to think.”
- “That comment hit me harder than I expected.”
- “I’m feeling disconnected and I want to fix that.”
- “I need help with this, and that’s hard for me to say.”
- “I’m not at my best right now, but I’m still here.”
That isn’t weakness. That’s emotional precision. That’s courage with stakes.
Silence is easy.
Posturing is easy.
Pretending is easy.
What’s hard — what actually takes strength — is slowing down enough to speak honestly without collapsing into shame or exploding in anger. And here’s the paradox: The very thing many of us were taught would cost us respect is often what earns it.
A personal note on men who cry
I’ve always been a little soft-hearted. I was the kid who cried at movies, who felt things deeply, who got choked up when something actually mattered. Meanwhile, my dad — again, a good man — never cried.
For years, I thought that difference meant something was wrong with me.
But feeling deeply isn’t a flaw — it’s a different kind of strength.
A few weeks ago, I was in a conversation with mostly women and a couple of men. One friend was glowing as she talked about her fiancé's willingness to cry. And this guy? One of the most masculine men I know — confident, grounded, strong.
And what struck me most wasn’t just her pride — it was the way the other women nodded along. A few said their partners cry with them too — and that it draws them closer. A lot of us think women don’t want this — but I keep seeing proof that they do. We’ve been sold the idea that tears make a man small, when in reality, tears often show a man his full size.
Not all tears look like tears
Crying isn’t the only way to be emotionally healthy. Some men cry easily. Some rarely do. Both can be grounded and present.
My dad doesn’t cry. Even when his mother was dying from cancer, I never saw it. But one day after visiting her near the end of her life, he and my mom were driving home. My mom broke down in tears — grieving, overwhelmed. My dad held her hand and stayed present. When she finished, he said gently, “Thanks. I needed a good cry.” They laughed together — which is very on-brand for my family.
Since then, we’ve had a quiet theory: maybe my dad does cry — just not in the way people expect. Maybe his emotion shows up through empathy. Maybe his “tears” come through the people he loves. Men don’t all express emotion the same way — and that’s okay.
** To suggest that men MUST cry would be to prescribe just another peformance. That's not the point. The goal is to create space for what’s real.**
My journey with men, vulnerability, and learning to open up
For most of my life, opening up to other men felt very difficult. Everything stayed surface-level. Eventually, I realized I couldn’t keep avoiding emotional connection with half the population. I wanted deeper friendships. I wanted to be known. I wanted to feel whole.
So I started seeing a male therapist — a safe place to practice emotional honesty with another man. It was awkward. I stumbled. I softened things. I apologized too much. But slowly, my guard dropped and my voice steadied. I learned I could bring my full self into the room with a man and still be respected.
Once that door cracked open, something in me wanted to walk through it completely. I joined a men’s group. We met weekly online — a small circle of guys sharing openly about our lives. Stress, heartbreak, relationships, victories, failures. Support without fixing. Honesty without ego. It showed me a version of masculinity I hadn’t seen growing up — strong, honest, unarmed.
From there, I started opening up with a couple of my closest guy friends. Not the polished version — the real one. I shared things I wasn’t proud of. Things I feared would cost me respect. And every time, I was met with acceptance instead of rejection. Something unexpected happened: my vulnerability became an invitation.
A friend would see me open up, and you could almost see the tension leave his shoulders. Then he’d say: “Okay… can I tell you something?” And suddenly he’d share something heavy — something he’d carried alone for years. You could see the relief. The exhale. The weight leaving his face. That’s when I learned something I wish more men knew:
Authenticity is contagious.
One man opening up quietly gives other men permission to breathe.
And research backs this up:
A 2022 study on emotional disclosure found that sharing emotions (positive or negative) increased how close, warm, competent, and capable people seemed as leaders (PMC: doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2022.104363). Research on vulnerability and trust in leader–follower relationships also argues that vulnerability is a core ingredient for building interpersonal trust (see “Vulnerability and trust in leader–follower relationships,” 2015). Emerging work on perceived vulnerability similarly shows it can boost trust judgments in everyday interactions (ASU ISSR working paper by Thibault et al.).
The belief that vulnerability pushes people away simply isn’t accurate.
A different way forward
I’m not asking anyone to throw their mask on the ground today.
That’s not realistic — and it’s not fair.
The mask kept you safe. It helped you survive. It formed in response to pain, not stupidity. But the goal — slowly, gently — is to eventually feel safe without it. To reach a place where authenticity doesn’t feel dangerous. Where you don’t have to rehearse strength to be accepted.
You take it off in small moments. You breathe without it. You notice the world doesn’t collapse. You notice people actually move closer. Over time — gently — the mask becomes optional. Then unnecessary. Then outdated.
An invitation
Try one small act of grounded vulnerability this week.
One honest sentence. One moment where you tell the truth instead of performing strength. One safe person (therapist, men’s group, trusted friend) you choose to share it with on purpose.
And if this landed with you, send it to a man who might need to hear it —
not as a correction, but as an invitation.
Strength stops being a performance and becomes a presence. Not a mask. Just you.
Reflection prompts
Where do you most often perform strength instead of letting someone see you?
What small moment proved to you that honesty didn’t break a relationship?
What boundary would make honesty feel safer for you?
Who has earned the right to hear the unedited version?