What Happens When You Realize You’re a Man Now
“Toxic masculinity” is something I had unfortunately internalised prior to the term being thrown around in the last few years.
As a kid, I sat and listened to girl after girl repeat their episodes of sexual assault. I sat and listened to boy after boy share their stories of disappointment with their fathers. I realised that at some point I stopped looking at the positives of my male role models and instead focused on their neuroticism, selfishness, creepiness and/or insecurity.
I realised (or perhaps agreed) that I was a man when I was 21 at work and someone directed a client to “that man over there”. That was the first time that I heard someone call me a man, so I assumed that that was my initiation.
No bar mitzvah or getting my driver’s licence or being stung by some venomous insect for me. It was merely being given the label. Not as dramatic an initiation as I would’ve expected but what did I expect? I’m too culturally ambiguous to have a rite of passage.
When people say that someone is acting like a boy, they mean that that person is immature, imprudent and uninitiated. As a boy, you don’t necessarily think of yourself that way. Or, if you do, it’s not a bad thing. You accept that you have a lot of life to live and you’re ignorant about some stuff.
