It's 7:28 am as I write this. The weather is slightly chilly. I'm wrapped up, drinking black coffee because I'm trying to cut down on sugar, and I'm thinking about men's mental health.
Mental health is a difficult subject to write about. Even more difficult is men's mental health. In my part of the world, Ghana, many people still see it as something distant, vague, or even unnecessary. The internet hasn't helped much. What could have been an important conversation has often been reduced to gender wars, slogans, and competing grievances. But over the last year, I've found myself returning to one idea again and again.
The man has been convinced he is simple
This first came up when I was speaking with my wife about sex. About how I get turned on by certain things and off by others. How there's a difference between my physiological response to seeing a woman versus being aroused by one. How certain emotional, relational, and psychological factors can completely change my experience of desire. She was surprised. Aren't men supposed to be simple? Always on? Plug and play? She asked.
Not long after, we were at a couples' hangout with friends and the subject of the night was intimacy. Two thirds of the evening was spent by the women explaining to us men all the things we needed to know to improve intimacy. I was growing increasingly frustrated. When I couldn't help it anymore, I raised my hand and asked the men in the room if they were aware of their own pleasure. Did they have needs they wanted met, caveats around their intimacy that their spouses should know? I got crickets and blank stares. I realised that night that men have been told all their lives they're simple, emotionless givers, so thoroughly that they never pause to consider the complexity of their own minds and their own needs.
The months after, I carried a slight anger with me. But more than that, I carried grief. And the only way I could summarise it to a younger man is this. Being a good man is a thankless job. Every good thing you do is expected, and every mistake is an indictment. You carry the guilt of every man who has ever done wrong before you, and you must redeem the collective by your good deeds.
Another reality of the male experience is the invisibility of the weight we carry. This also came up in conversations with my wife. Her contributions to our marriage are visible. Home care, child care, physically laborious work you can point to. Mine is internal. I'm sitting, thumping away at a keyboard. Sitting behind a camera, talking on the internet. Sometimes I'm even having fun, out at coffee shops around town, meeting interesting people. So when I say I'm stressed, thinking about the future of our family and how we build a life worth living, the response is usually: what stress? The mental and emotional weight that comes with my role is almost invisible because it's such an interior experience. There's no pointing to it.
I can already feel the counter-arguments forming. And that discomfort is exactly the point.
Any attempt to unpack the complexity of the male experience is seen as making excuses or avoiding responsibility. That's what makes it difficult to talk about. But what makes it a lonely experience is that men themselves have come to believe there's no complexity to their own lives worth examining.
And that leads to a quiet breaking down. Because we're feeling things we've been told we shouldn't feel. Being misunderstood, being lonely, feeling like failures because we can't care for the people we love in all the ways we'd want to. We can't cry, that's weak. We can't be angry, that's reckless. We can't name our needs, that's selfish. We can't speak up, that's unacceptable.
And the real problem is we have come to believe this. So we stay strong, until we're not. And the narrative gets reinforced. See, men are selfish. Men are pigs.
I've been blessed with a wife who is more aware than most. Willing to trust my explanation of my lived experience, not only her perception of it. I think that's the only reason I'm even able to think about this subject at this depth.
Man, you are not a simple, flat thing living under the verdict of wrongs committed by men before you. You are a complex, layered being created to live a full life. The impact you have in the world will be limited if you don't pursue a deeper understanding of yourself. The joy available to you will be limited by that. And the people who love you will be better served by a fuller version of you. They'll resist it at first. But they'll love it later.
In the last four and a half months, I've cried more than I had in the previous five years. I've let myself feel anger, properly. Screamed. Stepped out in the middle of the day for a walk because I needed to cool down. I've refused, in conversation, to be held accountable for the actions of other men and demanded to be assessed on the basis of my own character. I've called out misrepresentation when I've seen it and asked for the same accountability I'm expected to carry.
And in doing that, I've also become more aware of my own blind spots. My screw-ups. All the ways I can be better.
I've learned to express my needs as fully as I carry my responsibilities.
For the women reading this. Put in the same amount of work to understand men as you expect them to put in to understand you. The men around you probably aren't hearing that they're loved enough. Needed enough. Cared for in the ways that matter most to them. But you can only do that if you first believe there's more to men than the two-paragraph narrative we've all been handed.
Praise them for the 80% of the time they get it right. And if you insist on transferring collective guilt to the men in your life, transfer the collective praise too. Give them credit for the good that other men have done. If that feels like a strange idea, good. Sit with that and ask yourself why.