(He Showed Me) Another Way

For the boys who felt too much, and the men who learned to mute it.
For the fathers who showed care without ever calling it brave.
This one’s for them—and maybe, for the rest of us too.

(He Showed Me) Another Way

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been drawn to connection—not conquest.
I felt things deeply. Noticed what went unsaid. Listened more than I spoke.

But for much of my life, that felt like a liability.
A softness others tried to harden.
A quiet that made people uncomfortable.

I was around nine when my friend Susan and I started looking after the littlest kids at school—wide-eyed and clinging to our legs, overwhelmed by the noise and scale of everything.

We’d walk them to class. Show them the bathrooms. Make sure no one was crying or lost.

I liked helping them feel safe.
I liked being gentle.

But not everyone saw it that way.
Other boys noticed—and they didn’t keep it to themselves.
They asked if I wanted to be a girl. If Susan was my girlfriend.

I didn’t understand why kindness made me suspect.
Why care had to be gendered.

That kind of moment teaches you something.
Not in words. In sensation.
It threads itself into your reflexes.
You learn what’s safe to show.

The message that followed me into adulthood was clear:
Be a provider. Be strong. Don’t flinch. Don’t need.
And if you can’t be those things, at least look like you are.

I learned to perform competence. To over-function.
To hide the soft parts—not out of shame, but because I knew they wouldn’t be met with care.

The version of manhood I absorbed never felt like mine.
It was loud when I longed for quiet.
Blunt when I was listening for nuance.
Stoic when I was reaching for connection.
It demanded things I wasn’t wired to give—and didn’t even know how to want.

But under the same roof, I lived with a very different model.

My dad personified care and compassion.
He was gentle without hesitation, kind without calculation.
Always looking out for others. Always offering a hand up.
He didn’t make a show of it—it was just who he was.
And in that quiet way, he gave me permission long before I realized I needed it.

As I entered the workforce, I didn’t embrace the version of manhood the world kept showing me.
But I learned how to move around it.
I made myself smaller in rooms that felt allergic to softness.
I sold my soul for the corporate shilling—saying yes to whatever, wherever, and however they needed me to perform.
I learned how to look competent, useful, unfazed.
It wasn’t belief. It was survival.
A quiet bargain with myself to get through the day without drawing fire.

There were years when I looked impressive on paper, yet felt strangely absent from my own life.
My calendar was full, but I couldn’t hear myself in any of it.

It wasn’t a crash that changed me.
It was something slower, and harder to name.
A kind of quiet grief.

The realization that somewhere along the way,
I had accepted being measured by values that were never mine—
and worse, I had started measuring myself that way too.

I remember one weekend, sitting alone in a hotel lobby
with a promotion letter in my bag, wondering why I felt nothing but tired.

I didn’t need to become a different kind of man.
I just needed permission to stop pretending I was someone else.

What saved me wasn’t rebellion.
It was recognition.
A remembering.

That care wasn’t some feminine trait I’d accidentally picked up—it was part of my design.

That what I was told made me weak
was what made me trustworthy.
That softness wasn’t the opposite of strength—it was its foundation.

We hear a lot about the crisis of masculinity.
Loneliness. Disconnection.
The loudest voices are angry.

But there are quieter stories too—of men remembering who they were
before they were told what they had to be.

Maybe the solution isn’t to redefine masculinity.
Maybe it’s to unburden it.

What if we stopped trying to fix men by changing their masks,
and started creating space for who they’ve always been—
before the mask, before the performance, before the silence?

What if we honored care as a form of courage?

What if we raised boys who don’t have to grow old
just to feel safe being kind—and let ourselves be seen too?

We don’t need new ideals.
We need room.
Room to breathe.
Room to feel.
Room to become the men we were all along.

B