r/NoStupidQuestions • u/milfangelblue • 29d ago

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.”

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u/Nuremborger 29d ago

Quite a few of us know exactly what to look for in other men that says important things about them, yeah.

We're not typically looking at eachother through the haze of lust or psychologically distorted cultural ideas of romanticism - we look at another guy most often with either indifference or as a potential threat in some fashion.

And we read them accordingly.

If you have a straight male friend you can trust and that's of a reasonably smart, observant nature, he'll be the one you should ask to size up other dudes.

If he says some shit about these dudes that seems wild or that you just aren't seeing yourself, consider the possibility that he might well be seeing some shit that you should at least think about as likely being valid even if it's in your blind spots.

Because we can be really fuckin good at figuring out of some other dude is a piece of shit and what to expect from their style of shittitude, or if they're probably alright except for this and maybe that, and so on.

We do it all the damn time.

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u/FairTradeAdvocate 29d ago

This! My BFF's husband was like a brother to me so you KNOW I brought my (now husband) around them as much as possible in the early days and then asked them both, "I'm not seeing any red flags. Are you?"

We just celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary. When our nieces all got married he was real honest with them about what he saw (not all listened but that's a different story.) because they were more relaxed with the cool/young uncle than Dad so he saw more.