18 Men Revealed To Women Pretty Huge Secrets That Bother Them On A Deep Personal Level
Reddit user philosophonomos asked the men of the community, "What’s a secret all men keep that women don't know?"
They revealed what they've kept in the vault for a long, longgggg time. And honestly, it's all pretty eye-opening.
So, here are secrets men have hidden from women for a long time:
Note: Some submissions include topics of gun violence. Please proceed with caution.
1."I think an uncomfortable secret I feel as a father is when I take my daughter to something that 'moms usually do.' I see the weird looks moms give me when I go to gymnastics and dance classes. I see how I’m treated differently from the other moms. I see how you ask the new mom her name, but never ask me my name (even after taking my daughter for weeks)."
2."On feelings: If we say we need a moment, then give us that moment — however long it takes. Typically a man is thinking how to formulate the response without being disrespectful towards the emotion of the situation. But when we're pressed, the brash response comes out and then it isn't fun for anyone."
3."A man is at his smoothest and most confident when he doesn’t give a shit about the woman he’s talking to."
4."The button on our collars when we’re dressed up with a tie hits right on our Adam’s apples, and is basically a low to mid-grade pain throughout the entire day. So when we (or you!) unbutton our collars at the end of the day, it feels like such a sweet relief."
5."We know you don’t ever ask us for much, but when you do, you are always walking away and on the other side of the house. We can hear you say you want a 'nhrmhfda,' but we don’t know what a 'nhrmhfda' is."
"My wife loves to play a game where she asks me to put on headphones because she can hear the video game that I'm playing. Then she'll talk to me from the other room and get mad at me because I can't hear her...I'm wearing the headphones that I put on because she asked me to wear them. I haven't quite figured out the rules yet, so I lose frequently."
6."Very few men actually talk about sex with their partners (or any private or sexual details about their significant other). Unlike the majority of women who blab every highly-sensitive personal detail to their friends, who in turn tell their boyfriends or husbands."
7."When we’re doing a task, I’m not cranky or mad or upset about it. We’re simply just quiet because we get into work mode, and as soon as the tasks are done, we’re back to our normal selves."
8."Our physical preferences aren't nearly as stringent as you think they are."
"My fiancé thinks I don't like her 'small' boobs. It's really hard to illustrate that all boobs are attractive without her resorting to, 'Oh, so you wish I had some BIG 'OL HONKERS, huh?' It's like, no — your boobs are the perfect handful and I love that."
9."You can talk shit about us to our face, but if you do it in front of your friends or family, it builds resentment."
"I pretty much look at my relationships like I’m climbing a mountain. Once they start doing that, I know I’ve reached the top and it’s time to climb back down."
10."We flush the toilet while peeing, and then race the toilet to see if we can finish peeing before it finishes flushing."
11."You know when I tell you you look great, hot, and sexy? Well, that’s only about 5% of the times that I think it. I don’t want to weird you out with how much you turn me on (even though we’ve been married for seven years)."
12."I have goals and ideas I’d like to see through. I just won’t talk about them with you because of the likelihood of you using them against me in the future to tear me down when you’re unhappy."
13."We do have emotions — we just don't feel entitled to express those emotions often (lest it harms us). Just asking to know what they are isn't enough — we have to trust you aren't going to invalidate our feelings. Unless you have some awareness of 'unconditional regard' and nonjudgemental listening, you are very likely to do so. If your social skills are only about talking without listening, a man is unlikely to actually open up to you (this may well be a universal trait rather than just with men)."
"I had an ex laugh at me for shaking after being in the middle of a shoot out — I was literally shaking. I've seen so much violence and stopped a ton of violence. I couldn't tell where the shots were coming from — I hid and then ran.
She fucking laughed at me — a woman who had never seen any real violence in her life. She laughed at me for being scared and mocked me, saying: 'I thought you were so tough, you've been through all this shit. Look at you shaking like a leaf.'
I've seen worse since then and handled worse since then. Fuck her — I could never share with her after that. That basically killed anything I would ever share with her, and she knew everything."
14."We realize communication and vulnerability are important. I think often times, even well-intentioned partners don't really want us to be 'overly' emotional or communicative. I think many men feel they are just left to quietly struggle and work away in a world that both tells them to 'suck it up,' and that it's their fault if they're sad."
15."There's nothing wrong. Sometimes we genuinely just want to sit down for a while and think about absolutely nothing."
16."A man can also fake an orgasm (and ejaculating doesn't always mean we're having an orgasm)."
17."A lot of us have been environmentally conditioned to bottle up our wants and needs. We don't talk about them openly to anybody, aside from our closer male friends on occasion. We might be ever so slightly terrible about expressing them in a way that sounds polite to you because we don't have practice in doing so. Unless what was said when we're expressing our wants, needs, and feelings is outright malicious, it's not meant to be malicious."
18.And finally, "I wish I got more physical contact and affection from everyone in my life — no one really touches us. Guy friends can't because it's 'considered gay.' And girl friends can't because its 'a come on' — it sucks. I once had a guy friend who would innocently just put his arm around me when we were standing around chatting. I miss that. Oftentimes, the women we date are the only people we're 'allowed' to touch."
Note: Some submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
