I don’t fit very well with the idea of masculinity. I’m just a goofy nerd with a gentle personality and the desire to make others happy. I have always wanted to look soft and approachable; I have smooth, rounded facial features, wavy hair, big glasses, and a clean-shaven face. My personality is utterly non-threatening. I love caring for people, I enjoy being silly and whimsical, I’m a bit clumsy and get flustered easily, I wouldn’t hurt a fly (unless I had to), and I’m polite to a fault. My paradise is a warm, cozy, quiet safe haven surrounded by cute plushies.
I’m not manly in the slightest, and I love being that way. I’m a total softie through and through, and I purposely align my appearance with my personality. I look gentle because I am gentle.
I have always been treated differently than my male peers. Many people are inexplicably nicer or softer on me even if they barely know me. Female friends have fawned over me, calling me things like “cute,” “adorable,” and “sweetheart,” and expressing a desire to protect me. And I love it. I don’t find it offensive or infantilizing at all.
Through extensive introspection, I later figured out that care and nurturing are incredibly attractive to me, and the funny tickle I felt whenever I was shown care and protection by my female friends was actually a subtle tinge of attraction. It’s rather curious that my personality and gender expression just happened to develop in such a way to subconsciously solicit that kind of attention.
This is all well and good, but I worry that this makes me categorically unsexy due to my intentional suppression of gendered characteristics and desire to give off pure, wholesome vibes. Could I really be sexually desirable if I’m the kind of person who apologizes to trees for bumping into them? Some women have even teasingly called me a “Christian” or “virgin” because of this perceived innocence, suggesting that some people do indeed associate my personality with sexual restraint or abstinence.
In reality, I absolutely do want a sexual relationship, and I have always imagined myself treating a partner with the same gentle caregiving energy that I myself crave. I don’t do “naughty” or “dominant”; I would view a partner’s body as something to passionately take care of, not something to tease or conquer.
I would appreciate some outside perspective on this. Thanks!
bro that is manly as fuck. keep doing you because it’s hella manly to be gentle and caring and nurturing.
you need to stop worrying about all that “not alpha/sigma male = not attractive” self-doubt. you also need to stop worrying about your attractiveness. you’re already attractive to some people. just find people you really enjoy hanging out with one on one, and eventually you’ll land a partner.
This. Exactly this.
Trying to be what others consider desirable or normal is really just a kind of lack of strength in your own personality. True strength is when you can be yourself, don’t pretend and simply live the way you want to be. Your friends will be true friends because they will know you without pretense. Anyone who doesn’t find you attractive in this way is the wrong partner.
Most people are attracted to others or not attracted to other based on visual information and pheromone information. Then secondarily, people become more or less attracted to someone based on personality.
So if your personality is not dominant and comes across as submissive or mild, that really probably has zero impact at all on the initial attraction of others.
Absolutely brother!
This is how you end up in an abusive relationship…
I am certainly not in your target demographic, and personally yeah it would be a turnoff but it would be really stupid for you to try to change and be unhappy - you don’t need everyone to appreciate you in a romantic way, you only need a few admirers, right?
Looking at the people my kids date (more likely your age) they don’t seem to have the preference for “manly men”, none of them. They like guys who are not afraid to be soft, not afraid to wear nail polish or look ‘girly’ or whatever, they seem to find guys who do the Masculine thing actively off-putting. So you are in a good cultural moment I’d say. I think you will do fine being yourself, also never think it’s a weakness to be gentle and caring. Most people want to be taken care of to some extent, just make sure this isn’t a one-way thing, you take care of them too.
I have no doubt that you can find a lovely woman who is attracted to you. I used to be a girl fawning over a guy calling him cute and we’ve been together for ten years now. Maybe it is helpful to drop some hints that you are looking for a (hetero) relationship, like invite your girlfriends to help you swipe on tinder/bumble, let them know what you are looking for.
Yeah, definitely. Women who love guys like that are more common than people think. I know a bunch. I married one. Stay upbeat and financially self-sufficient and you can find someone who’s right for you. The idea that you have to be a tough guy to get dates has evolved from a misconception to a fucking psyops.
By the way, as a bi guy, I have never considered a man “adorable” or “a sweetheart” unless I thought I’d enjoy dating him. I must presume that women are often the same way.
Cute? like a baby turtle!!
As a man, men think women care about looks more than they do.
Looks are much bigger for men than for women.
Obviously a massive generalisation, but in general. Like “men are physically stronger than women”. Not all men are stronger than women but…
Anyway.
Looks really don’t matter that much. I’d say women pay more attention to personality with the same difference as there is between how much men value looks vs how women value looks.
Also, if I was being very crude, I’d say “status” is the “looks” for women. That’s what you get very beautiful women with older rich men more than you do young hot men with old riches women.
But I’d like not to be crude so disregard that last bit.
I can’t speak for all women, but looks for me are a yes/no binary, but a primary filter. So if a guy looks good enough, attractive to me, then I can be attracted to him if he’s attractive in other ways. But there’s no bonus for better than good enough, better looking doesn’t matter at all. It is quite important - nobody has ever moved out of the appearance “no” bucket into the “yes”. But there is no 1-10 scaling, no consideration beyond the yes/no, I’m never going to be more attracted to a man just because he’s gorgeous.
Hey I just want you to know I’ve been going through some really complicated identity stuff lately and your post was really therapeutic to read through. I think I underestimated how much toxic masculinity influences my confidence and comfort with my identity. Thank you for sharing this, I can’t wait for you to meet somebody who appreciates you for who you are. You are a man and I love the way you express yourself.
Thanks for your support, and I’m glad I could help! I wish I could have read posts from unabashedly soft guys when I was still struggling with my masculinity, so I’m happy that I could help someone else in a similar way.
A little bit about my journey:
Female friends have fawned over me, calling me things like “cute,” “adorable,” and “sweetheart,” and expressing a desire to protect me.
These were the people who changed my life. I used to hide my personality out of shame, and they saw right through me. They called out my tenderness and basically said, “Hey, I love this side of you and I want to see more of it.” I couldn’t believe that people could wholeheartedly like something that I was told was my biggest weakness for my whole life.
But one of these friends explained to me that this “weakness” was nothing more than hateful messaging perpetuated by miserable people. She showed me just how much people around me, herself included, loved the very aspects of myself that I was insecure about. The evidence became so overwhelming that I finally accepted that I had been lied to for my entire life. My oppressive belief system had sustained fatal damage and finally began to collapse.
Those miserable people were my own family members. I was a victim of their abuse and indoctrination since childhood. These women were the heroes who kept me from going down the dark path my family had forged for me. I can’t even begin to describe just how much I was able to heal as a result of their actions. It has been utterly transformative for me. Their influence may be the best thing that has ever happened to me.
I hope that you’re able to find friends who affirm your identity, too. Friends who see aspects of you that you worry others won’t like and respond with love and encouragement. That was the most powerful thing for me.
Did you see some of the guys at the Oscars this year?
Colman Domingo SLAYED it.
https://www.instyle.com/best-dressed-men-oscars-2025-11689188
We can have sash belts now? Nobody told me!
Dude looks like he’s straight out of Star Trek tos. I’m absolutely here for it.
Love that look.
Dress uniform FTW!
I have an ex who is like you, and i love that about him, it is one of his most attractive qualities… we are still besties but didnt work out due to me figuring out my identity as primarily being attracted to femme people (yes i think thats why i loved him so much lol) but he was not into presenting that way. Also i was becoming more and more masc and he’s straight.
Now that i think about it, this might be the opposite of encouraging lmao…hopefully mine was just a fringe case, but honestly the only reason i would ever choose to do it differently if i could, would be because he would have those ywars back to find the right person. I don’t regret the relationship and he’s one of my dearest friends.
Anyyway, im high as fuck and im gonna go watch tv with my girl. Lol
I only have one piece of advice from my experiences: be your authentic self and dont be afraid to open yourself to others. If you do, the right people tend to just show up. its honestly magical. Good luck to you. :)
Two thoughts on this:
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There are probably way more men out there than you think that feel very similar, but are ashamed to be open about this, especially towards male peers, and therefore build a facade of manly manliness that doesn’t reflect their actual personality.
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There are probably way more women out there than you think that like exactly this personality. Dude, a lot of women like women. Women are usually not very manly. So if there are enough women liking women, there are enough women liking dudes like you. Don’t worry. Lots of women aren’t attracted to macho-type guys at all.
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I fundamentally disagree with your premise. Being caring, vulnerable, gentle is in no way incompatible with being manly. All require a lot of courage, strength, and intelligence. I do not think that manliness should be defined by its most toxic representatives.
I also heard an interesting take on this: we technically do not have a definition of what “manliness” means, as currently society is built around hating and oppressing women. Boys are told “don’t be a girl”, pretty much - don’t cry, don’t be ‘emotional’, don’t compromise, etc.
I think you should be grateful that you weren’t indoctrinated into being an abuser and instead managed to become a “real man”.
If you have trouble breaking the friendship barrier, consider getting in touch and expressing your romantic side more, because the qualities you describe are super attractive
I used the word “manly” here as a shorthand for traditional masculinity, which I assumed was how it’s used colloquially; I don’t mean to assert that men are defined by traditional masculinity. My concern (more like blind superstition) is that a preference for many of those features (minus the misogyny) are biologically wired, and that having very few of these characteristics is inherently unattractive to most male-attracted people. It’s a fear that traditional masculinity is an inescapable standard and opting out leads to extreme difficulty in finding relationships. I asked this question because I want evidence that it’s safe to ignore gender roles entirely.
I think you should be grateful that you weren’t indoctrinated into being an abuser
Funnily enough, I kind of was. I was raised by far right extremists whose beliefs were so obviously evil and cruel that I sought outside information through the Internet as a teen. Most of what I saw there was right-leaning, but far less openly bloodthirsty, so it was more palatable to me to consume. But because of this, I deeply internalized right-wing social constructs, including most of the lies about women that are used to justify misogyny and patriarchy.
This programming socially stunted me. I hated myself because I didn’t live up to masculine standards and I was bullied for it at home and school. I wasn’t interested in women because I was indoctrinated into believing they were helpless damsels who wanted to be controlled, which, especially seeing my parents’ abusive relationship, felt grossly exploitative to me. I decided to just lay low and be polite, accepting that I was inferior due to my lack of machismo.
Even though I avoided others and had no confidence, I still had people, mostly women, who wanted to reach out and get to know me. They praised the softer traits that I tried to hide, and I found myself admiring many of their tough and protective personality traits. That deprogrammed me from gender norms, but only for platonic connections. Whether or not it was safe to ditch gender norms for romantic connections was an open question for me. So getting helpful feedback to this question has helped boost my confidence on that a lot!
My brother, unfortunately, never challenged his programming. He tells me that all women are the same, they all want to be ruled over by men, and LGBTQ+ women are straight people in denial. A few weeks ago, he literally killed his girlfriend’s cat for “misbehaving.” Instead of breaking up, they just casually replaced the cat with a different one. So yeah, the people I grew up around are so unhinged that it radicalized me into becoming normal.
