Ask men why they do things the way they do and maybe you'll get an honest answer

[Otterly]

Every time I express admiration to a woman regarding what a large size of pants she must be wearing, it's never taken well.

Are you saying my bum looks big in this?? Are you saying I’m fat?!?
(Four day sulk..)

 

[Raven of the Burning God]

Look up ‘cremasteric reflex’ for more mind-numbingly interesting details.

For anyone expecting this to be Japanese Sonic Inflation Rule 34, it's a real thing.
Yes, some anatomist of yore decided to call your ballsack muscles the "cream master", which is completely innocuous and innocent in greek.

Hey man, nice cock!

What a good cock, man.

 

[Ignatius von Cistern]

Are you saying my bum looks big in this?? Are you saying I’m fat?!?
(Four day sulk..)

Look, I'm not saying you're fat. In fact I like big bums, specifically your bum. Consequently, let's just ignore what I said and go to bed. You like when I speak trash in Latin to you? Yeah let's go do that. Nasum tuum prehendam et Iulium Caesarem tibi recitabo

 

[General Patton]

Imagine a woman, then add reason and accountability.

More seriously, this is a hard question to answer. I think the main thing is that men don't really care all that much about the elaborate drama vortices that women can find all-consuming. Like a woman is someone who spends 90% of her brainpower on romantic relationships, and for a man, it's 10%. So even if you're writing a very female-oriented story that is about elaborate, emotional, romantic drama, the men in the story should largely be bewildered and irritated by the drama, not consumed by it. Men typically react to drama by becoming withdrawn and checking out.

That makes a lot of sense. I'm currently working on a male character, older, who is grieving, (also Edwardian which I imagine men in the 1900s were not like men these days) and I am trying to make him more withdrawn. Although trying to accurately write a man who is grieving is more challenging.

 

[souschef]

That makes a lot of sense. I'm currently working on a male character, older, who is grieving, (also Edwardian which I imagine men in the 1900s were not like men these days) and I am trying to make him more withdrawn. Although trying to accurately write a man who is grieving is more challenging.

Grief is a very personal thing for men

I never felt the need to talk about it in mourning with anyone, nor did i want to

 

[Ignatius von Cistern]

That makes a lot of sense. I'm currently working on a male character, older, who is grieving, (also Edwardian which I imagine men in the 1900s were not like men these days) and I am trying to make him more withdrawn. Although trying to accurately write a man who is grieving is more challenging.

Alcohol, work, whores.

 

[General Patton]

Grief is a very personal thing for men

I never felt the need to talk about it in mourning with anyone, nor did i want to

The main thing I've noticed myself personally with the men I know is I've only seen them cry when someone dies.

Alcohol, work, whores.

I'm not sure how many prostitutes might have been in 1911 Yorkshire villages.

 

[Waffle Iron]

Hey man, nice cock!

Even when men try to compliment eachother women are sure to run interference.

I remember hearing a detail saying a woman would be better off using the men's room at a place like a baseball game because you're literally in and out, compared to the woman's room where it's a very long line that takes ages.

I know some women use them when the women's queue is too long and the men's are relatively empty.

I've seen it a few times. Even at a male dominated convention the women's toilet had a queue around the corner while the men's was like 5 people. Eventually you had some women just cross cross the hallway and jump into a stall.

down syndrome niggas

Spoiler: frog butt

I've only seen them cry when someone dies.

For many people crying is very looked down upon and childish. You're supposed to swallow your tears and cry in a dark corner, if at all. I've felt the atmosphere in a room change when some tough lumberjack type of guy ended up crying while hugging his dying grandpa. I guess it's "toxic masculinity" but plenty of women don't want to see a guy cry either.

 

[souschef]

The main thing I've noticed myself personally with the men I know is I've only seen them cry when someone dies.

Pretty much yeah

For many people crying is very looked down upon and childish. You're supposed to swallow your tears and cry in a dark corner, if at all. I've felt the atmosphere in a room change when some tough lumberjack type of guy ended up crying while hugging his dying grandpa. I guess it's "toxic masculinity" but plenty of women don't want to see a guy cry either.

I don't see as a lack of masculinity thing but i think it's something very persona and a very vulnerable state to be in. I didn't cry when i got the bad news about my dad, but sure did in private. For many days

 

[Smashed & Slamed]

That makes a lot of sense. I'm currently working on a male character, older, who is grieving, (also Edwardian which I imagine men in the 1900s were not like men these days) and I am trying to make him more withdrawn. Although trying to accurately write a man who is grieving is more challenging.

Emotions are for women so how could he feel grief?

 

[Ignatius von Cistern]

I'm not sure how many prostitutes might have been in 1911 Yorkshire villages.

Look, every village has a village bicycle. Just go to the pub.

 

[Kofi Drinka]

That makes a lot of sense. I'm currently working on a male character, older, who is grieving, (also Edwardian which I imagine men in the 1900s were not like men these days) and I am trying to make him more withdrawn. Although trying to accurately write a man who is grieving is more challenging.

"I want to write a realistic male character" makes no sense. You need to say what the story is, who he is and where did he come from. Writing a realistic working class chav and writing a realistic lawyer from Oxbridge are totally different.

For some advice on male grieving. It is private, intense and it's personal. Men will share it with their mother as a kid and their wife and girlfriend as an adult. Men have 1 tent pole they lean on almost exclusively and it's not because of any toxic masculinity wank. It's because men don't deal with emotions by directly addressing them in public (well maybe anger). They find ways to turn their brains off, Some use drink, others use sex as the ultimate distraction and some double down on their interests. Think of men's emotional function more like a wood chipper than a hose. Women spray shit every where and get validation and attention. Men grind it up and then spit it out when they're done. Men are obsessive and autistic in their hyper focus on things. If they're hyper focusing on grief it's very hard for them. If they can hyper focus on tits, booze or finally building that bookshelf and fixing the wallpaper then it's easier. It lets them put down their pain mentally and when they pick it back up again it's lighter. If they talk about it at all outside of their partner it will be to take the piss out of it. Any men asking "you alright mate?" will get a "yea, not too bad" style reply.

I'm not sure how many prostitutes might have been in 1911 Yorkshire villages.

Your mother was one.

 

[dick brain]

Bathroom sex is actually very common among gay guys. Not saying all of them are like that but sure is common. And nasty... How can you get aroused in a place so damn disgusting is beyond me

Gays get off on being disgusting, that's their whole thing.

LOL, alright.

What's a good way for a woman to write a male character if she's writing a story, and how can it be done to make it accurate?

Write less.
I can write a big long thing about human behavioral biology if you want me to but the bottom line is that men and women are fundamentally motivated by very different things and we'll never truly understand each other in that regard, just intellectualized approximations, and the more you try to write a character you don't understand the higher the likelihood of you getting it wrong. Write what you know.
Or just ask a man what he'd do/feel in a situation on a case by case basis, that's probably your best bet.

What a good cock, man.

A MAN HAS CUM

 

[Nick Wilde]

I'm not sure how many prostitutes might have been in 1911 Yorkshire villages.

Give it a few years and he'll find plenty in France, then he'll be on the front line for the first day of the Somme. So really this character is going nowhere, start again.

Real talk though his geographic and social class background will make as much of a difference as his gender, if men are stoic, he'll be double stoic. Be mindful that the women of that time and place were hardly warm loving balls of emotion either, their affection to their kids will have just as likely been a clout round the ear as a hug. If he's working class, he'll be a man of very few words and very grim resolve. More middle or upper class background would soften this, but not by much, and only in private.

However, if you were to write his inner thoughts, they would be in contrast, extremely reflective. He would process a lot of it internally so that he can better keep his composure publicly.

Overall, remember that people are basically creations of their environment. Men of today are not emotionally constipated because they want to be, or because they don't feel, but because they have to keep it under control by necessity. So just apply that reasoning to a society where you work a 28 hour day down't pit and live in a rolled up newspaper etc.

 

[The Ugly One]

That makes a lot of sense. I'm currently working on a male character, older, who is grieving, (also Edwardian which I imagine men in the 1900s were not like men these days) and I am trying to make him more withdrawn. Although trying to accurately write a man who is grieving is more challenging.

Grieving, as a man, is an unwelcome intrusion. When I was coping with the death of a close family member, I would talk to him while I walked my dog, not because I wanted to, not in an affectionate way, but because that's where it would come bubbling out. As an example of how one might write this, here is my stab at writing an English man whose son was killed in the Somme. It's 6 months later.

William finished his breakfast and kissed Ada on the cheek. "Well," he said with a chipper affect to his voice, "time for my morning constitutional." He put his hat and coat on and headed out the door and down the path, that same path he'd walked every morning for the last twenty years. The morning was cool, gray, and not too damp, the perfect sort of morning for a brisk walk.

He passed through the village, which was just coming to life with the bustle of the morning's business, the only hint of the war being the notable absence of young men. As he walked through the village and out to the countryside, he passed by two small girls playing with dolls in the doorway of a simple, well-kept house. He tipped his hat and smiled, the thought that despite the horribleness of the war, there was still a future horizon, a dawn for a new generation, giving him no small warmth in his heart.

He passed through the village and walked along a stone wall guarding a flock of sheep. He stopped and gazed out across the field, his eyes looking far away, as though they could see past London, across the Channel, and penetrate the scarred landscape of France.

"Damn you, Henry."

He'd muttered these same words every day at this spot for six months.

"You shouldn't have enlisted."

Tears welled up in his eyes, and his voice quavered in a hoarse whisper.

"Damn you, my boy."

He took a deep breath and looked out across the field, motionless, expressionless, his external stillness betraying a now-familiar cascade of incoherent thoughts--expecting that Henry somehow explain himself, imagining himself somehow saving Henry, fantasizing about teaching Henry how to take cover properly, scolding himself for thinking himself any different than the countless other fathers experiencing the same loss--and finally, the claws of his thoughts scrabbling at the phantom of Henry's visage, as though he could cling to that memory and lose himself in a fantasy where Henry was still alive, still real.

The maelstrom passed, as it always did. This time, as always, it was a little less intense than yesterday, a little less vivid, and consumed him for a fraction of a moment less. As usual, not a drop escaped his eyes. The tears had stopped in September, in fact. And these days, he only held that memory of Henry for a few moments. When he'd got the news in November, he'd spent an hour every day standing at this wall, talking to Henry as though he was there among the sheep.

He turned away from the wall and returned home, his mind overwhelmed by a single thought, that he'd put off repairing his front gate for far too long. He resolved to purchase a box of nails in the village.

There's a kind of intrusive chaos to it that I'm trying to capture here.

EDIT: The best thing you can do is read books by men about themselves. For example, C.S. Lewis' A Grief Observed should give you a great deal of insight into the masculine emotional inner landscape.

 

[Tram Fan]

There's literally no reason to be going around complimenting people randomly unless you're trying to fuck them over somehow, and grown men shouldn't want or need compliments. It's not normal or polite, it's unseemly.

What am I supposed to do, when I'm not interested in a man, but he seems cool, and I want him to know, that he's cool?

Every time I express admiration to a woman regarding what a large size of pants she must be wearing, it's never taken well.

Maybe she was not in good mood or had BPD. Like, I just put pants two sizes too big, so that I can seduce more men.


Ok I'm gonna annoy you guys. Do you really always think of sex or sex-related stuff? I had a few men randomly start about sex stuff (i.e. hentai), when the conversation had nothing to do with sex.

 

[Kofi Drinka]

There's a kind of intrusive chaos to it that I'm trying to capture here.

That story really touched me. I'm not one to get overly emotional over shit, but that's exactly what grief is like. It's very well written and an excellent tale.

What am I supposed to do, when I'm not interested in a man, but he seems cool, and I want him to know, that he's cool?

You're supposed to realize your feelings aren't important and not let them make you do something stupid. He doesn't need to know you think he looks cool.

Ok I'm gonna annoy you guys. Do you really always think of sex or sex-related stuff? I had a few men randomly start about sex stuff (i.e. hentai), when the conversation had nothing to do with sex.

Yes and no. If men have stuff to do then sex doesn't really come into it. They're focused on other stuff. If they're not then their minds might wander to sex as a way to burn brain cycles. It also depends on how you mean sex. Men are always going to check women out, it doesn't mean they want to fuck them or they're thinking of sex. Like watching a movie and saying "Nice tits" isn't about wanting to fuck those tits, it's just banter and a laugh.

 

[The Ugly One]

Ok I'm gonna annoy you guys. Do you really always think of sex or sex-related stuff? I had a few men randomly start about sex stuff (i.e. hentai), when the conversation had nothing to do with sex.

Men think about sex more when women are around, and not so much when you aren't. The Wright Brothers weren't thinking about boobs when they were figuring out powered flight. It's why we just plain work better when there aren't any women at all. Women don't get to be around men when there are no women, so your perception of what men are like is always by definition what men are like when women are around.

 

[Shamefuru Disprayu]

I'd like to believe the Wright Brothers were thinking about breasts the entire time they were inventing powered flight.

 

[Not 6 Foot]

Grieving, as a man, is an unwelcome intrusion.

The fuck are you talking about? This is why men kill themselves instead of processing their emotions.