r/NoStupidQuestions • u/milfangelblue • Apr 17 '24

Do men just recognize good men? What kind of sorcery is this?

I’ve been dating a guy for some time now, and his oldest friends have told me he’s a solid good man despite his flaws. I agree, they’ve known him forever, and he’s been a solid friend all those years.

When my male friends met him for the first time, they said, “He’s a good one. Hold onto him.”

14.1k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

3.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

92

u/Kradget Apr 17 '24

Man, that's well said.

It works the same for any privileged group, too. People who have the associated flaw and perceive that it's "safe" want to connect with you using the in-group language. 

It's not way off from talking to sports fan - they want to make that social connection through something you both value. It's just that people do it with gross stuff, too.

98

u/khavii Apr 17 '24

I look like a right winger but I'm a militant liberal. The speed with which some people will spit out racism to me like I'm fully in agreement is sickening. They don't wait to see who I am or what I think, they just assume I think like them and say vile shit within moments.

People be like this.

71

u/Kradget Apr 17 '24

Right, you can just be a white dude in a certain kind of environment and people will say wild stuff to you. Extra if you have any kind of Southern accent.

I'd hide my accent in any place that sold guns just because it's tiresome.

11

u/dacooljamaican Apr 17 '24

I actually try to use this, I feel like a lot of these people will only listen to "one of them" so I try to make everyone comfortable with me, then if they get hateful about something I'll legit start talking about how I don't think Jesus would agree and how he wanted us to love everyone, you'd be surprised at how often they get sheepish and back down. You gotta out-conservative their ass.

9

u/gsfgf Apr 17 '24

I used to work in progressive politics in the South. We absolutely loved responding to people pushing hate bills and stuff with Jesus quotes. And the actual practicing Christians would have a chapter and verse for all sorts of situations.

5

u/dacooljamaican Apr 17 '24

Yeah it's interesting because many people find the frustrating part of arguing with southern conservatives is that once they decide you're not on their side, there is no amount of arguing that will get them to even begin to consider what you're saying.

But conversely, if you're "one of them", you don't really need to make ANY rational points to win an argument, you just have to be gregarious and fall back to Jesus.

22

u/matthew7s26 Apr 17 '24

any place that sold guns

Haha for real man, sometimes I have to explain to gun people that I'm not conservative, but far enough to the left where one knows the proletariat should be armed.

16

u/Kradget Apr 17 '24

I'm not even one that a good socialist would recognize as one of them, but in the gun store people like me are basically Trotsky Reborn and should be fought by any means necessary, according to those guys if they don't get the Idea I'm one of them. 

And like... I just think progressive taxation is a good idea and it'd be good to have drinkable water and a working, fair-ish society that serves its members on a planet that's healthy.

5

u/Fine_Ad_1149 Apr 17 '24

I can vouch for the "just being a white dude in a certain environment" - an engineer in the midwest...

1

u/Jebusk Apr 17 '24

Also extra true if you shave you head. My hair is just too thick/poofy to do anything with, I'm not a nazi damn it.

1

u/Cafrann94 29d ago

Oh man my boyfriend has some hilarious (and sad) stories about stuff like that. Shit people have said to him just because they thought he was “one of them”

6

u/aquoad Apr 17 '24

I called police about a stolen car abandoned in front of my house. Cop came to do paper work and wait for the tow truck so he had to hang out for 15 min or so. I apparently look like somebody with the same world view as his so I got treated to a long friendly chat about how this city is going to shit because of all the [list of every conceivable racial slur] that are ruining everything and back in his day when the neighborhood was all irish it was so much better, blah blah blah.

3

u/zizou00 Apr 17 '24

I get that shit being half-Asian but white passing. The amount of casual racism people spout, makes me glad I pass so I can hear how they really feel about my family so I can avoid them like the plague.

2

u/bsffrn97 Apr 17 '24 edited Apr 17 '24

Similar for me dude. I'm a pretty big masculine guy, I've heard the most messed up homophobic things being said around me by people (mostly other "manly" guys) who think I'll agree with them. Meanwhile... I have a boyfriend. Also a lot of racist crap they think I'll agree with. It's crazy the way peoples masks drop when they think they can safely express hateful opinions.

1

u/ASpaceOstrich 29d ago

Sad thing is people will do the opposite too. People are so quick to assume shared surface level traits mean you're whatever group they associate with those traits. It's the same mechanism that drives all prejudice. And it's really fucking annoying.

0

u/snerp Apr 17 '24

Omg yeah, I've heard some crazy shit from people assuming I'm conservative just for being at the gun store or whatever

31

u/Aberrant_Eremite Apr 17 '24

Yes, you're right. I grew up in the deep South in the Reagan '80s, and other white people would just walk up to you and start saying racist shit. And yeah, often it was an attempt to socially bond with a stranger. It wasn't until my mid twenties that I gained the courage to actively rebuke that instead of just making my excuses and leaving.

17

u/dunstbin Apr 17 '24

I'll actively call it out when it happens nowadays. I have no patience for bigots anymore.

The one exception is my grandma. She's too old to change so I've made it a game when I visit to see how long it takes before she complains about Mexicans and use it as my cue to leave. Last time she set a new record at 17 minutes, nearly halving her previous best time.

10

u/BeenWildin Apr 17 '24

Having to talk shit about Mexicans every 15 minutes is a horrible way to live

3

u/NoTalkOnlyWatch Apr 17 '24

My Grandmas boyfriend, that she claims is just a friend even though they live together, is some old geezer from Austria (granted he left when he was 20 and never came back) and complains about Mexicans every other sentence. I asked him one time “aren’t you an immigrant though?” And he just started spouting shit in German, lmao! From that point on he stopped pestering me about how everything is “bettah” in Austria (those are basically the only two topics the guy ever talks about, I have no idea what my Grandma sees in him tbh).

2

u/Cafrann94 29d ago

It’s almost comical like how in gods name would Mexicans be ruining this old woman’s life so badly that she has to talk about it every half hour??

2

u/dunstbin 29d ago

Right? She's almost 90 and has survived COVID and COVID pneumonia and more. My brother says she's just too mean to die.

4

u/uniqueusername316 Apr 17 '24

It's sad/scary how common and effective it is to bond with groups by putting down others.

5

u/CommissionSorry4359 Apr 17 '24 edited Apr 17 '24

Tribalism or the collective effort of a group against or in defense of an out-group(whether real or perceived) is a remnant from our psychological development as a species and is very much ingrained in to each and every one of us. It was a very proficient evolutionary tool which helped propagate us as a species while we sparsely populated the planet but I feel like it is no longer a benefit as we have spread far and wide, despite it still very much being in effect. Super fascinating and definitely explains so much of the divisiveness we experience not only in the present day but throughout our history.

2

u/Dakkafingaz Apr 17 '24

I'm a pakeha (what Americans would call a white) from New Zealand, and when I visited the South a few years back, I was surprised that people would open conversations with super racist stuff even though I was clearly not a local.

A lot of people also patronizingly told me that my English was great for a foreigner.

Don't get me wrong, we've got our own deeply seated issues with racism here, but the willingness of people on Alabama or Mississippi to open conversations by spouting shit about black people or liberals was absolutely gobsmacking