I'm not normally one for threads but I encountered something over the weekend i keep thinking about. Coming home from a club about 3am on Saturday I found a young lad sat on the floor looking upset. I asked if he was okay. "not really" he said, crying. I went over and had a chat
He was a fresher and missing his mates back in London. Struggling to fit in. He'd been out with a bunch of Rugby lads, who he was desperately trying to impress and fit in with. He was properly sobbing about embarrassing himself in front of "the hardest lad" in the group.
All because he kept referencing the wrong sports team when trying to converse with this lad. Kept calling himself names and saying what an idiot he was. Told me he didn't like drinking too much because it made him feel not himself and he didn't like his behaviour.
But because he'd come out later than everyone else he'd been forced to be on "catch up" i.e downing loads of booze to be on the same level as the rest of them who had been out for a while. Never even crossed his mind that he was allowed to say no or expect not to be forced.
So here's a young lad, desperately homesick, trying to find his feet, himself, his friendship group and he's terrified about it and on top of that he has to deal with all the guilt and shame and embarrassment that he feels from having drunk too much and said "the wrong things"
I found it so fucking heartbreaking. 18yo lad, new city, should be having the time of his life and he's sat on the street by himself at 3am crying his eyes out because he can't figure out who to turn himself into just to impress some rugby lads and course mates.
Tried my best, without being insensitive, to tell him it doesn't matter, to be himself, find kinder people to be around and to not force himself to drink if he knows it doesn't agree with him. He listened but basically viewed that option as complete social ostracisation.
Can't stop thinking about how we've reached this stage. Built up such an idiotic, false, harmful idea of what being a man is. And how cruel and alienating the whole thing is. That poor lad's mind was all all over the place. He didn't know who/what to be.
It's easy to shrug off as uni banter. Something people will grow out of. I'm sure (and hope) some will. But also, this is foundation-laying stuff. Young men being hammered into this bogus notion of what they are supposed to be and how to behave.
And the impacts are seen all over the world. Stupid protection rings set up where men continue to behave with almost impunity and are backed-up and protected by others from a system that has been built from this vacuous moral code they've made up around themselves.
and seeing this lad crying his heart out on the street alone just made me think that deep down i suspect most people feel like him. There's maybe a few ringleaders who are grade A cunts but many others just tag along, desperate to fit in and saying and doing whatever it takes.
Which i think is the most depressing takeaway from this. That often people who align themselves with these pernicious attitudes, behaviours and people don't even have their heart in it. They don't believe in it or want it. But that it's just expected of them and they're afraid
There's no real point or conclusion to this thread. Just can't shake the image of that teen sat there with his cold kebab meat on the floor and his eyes full of tears. All because he doesn't know how to alter his true self to impress people that force him to do stuff he hates.
