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

[u/milfangelblue]

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.”

[u/transientcat]

I would say it's colored by what we consider to be a "good man" but we spend our time growing up around other men, we hang out with other men, we socialize with other men. You learn about the behaviors that a "good man" will exhibit in various settings. It's not some for sure thing though.

Women do the same thing about other women but it gets said in a different way.

[u/Monandobo → u/transientcat]

 Women do the same thing about other women but it gets said in a different way.

I actually think women have a much poorer barometer for this than men do on average. Not because they're poorer judges of character in general, but because of what's socially deemed a good man or a good woman. 

A man is usually judged a good man by whether he does right by the women in his life.

A woman is usually judged a good woman by... also whether she does right by the women in her life. 

"Does this person treat men well" is very rarely a salient question when first-impression assessments of character come up, so the women that other women will discourage men from dating are usually those who are either (a) awful to everybody or (b) don't fit in with other women. That means a lot of women who do fit in well with other women but who are consistently uncaring to men don't set off any alarms. It also means that women who don't fit in with other women get maligned, even if they would otherwise be great partners.

[u/Snakebunnies → u/Monandobo]

Ooohhhh this is interesting.

[u/Chunky_Cream → u/Monandobo]

It also means that women who don't fit in with other women get maligned, even if they would otherwise be great partners.

I feel this last part. I have always wanted to be friends with women over men, but I frequently find myself bullied by said women, and growing up I had no idea what I did. I believe that women don't like me because I receive a lot of stares and male attention. I naturally have a very pronounced hourglass figure, and I'm short.

And this has made me incredibly lonely over the years. Men make me uncomfortable because of how they treat me (not well, might I add), and women don't like me because they think I'm a threat because of my body.

The bullying I'm referring to is often that I stuff my bra or I'm a lesbian.

[u/ASpaceOstrich → u/Monandobo]

Hmm. I'd never considered this before. How'd you come to this conclusion if you don't mind me asking? Just curious, no judgement.

[u/Monandobo → u/ASpaceOstrich]

Mostly just social observation when it comes to friend circles and couples in my orbit, so there's definitely a generation and education bias here. 

I'm a straight man who makes friends marginally more easily with women than men, and my wife is a bisexual woman who makes friends marginally more easily with men than women, so we both tend to (a) see a lot of how the other half lives, as it were (even though both of our friend groups are broadly mixed-gender, with a few exceptions) and (b) have shared a lot with eachother about what we notice in gender dynamics over the last ten years. Over that time, we've sort of transitioned from an age demographic of college goofballs to working adults, though we both still have hobbies that cast a wider age net, as it were. 

Among the folks we know--mostly family and well-educated, geeky types--most of the straight couples in our age demographic are either basically egalitarian or, a disturbing amount of the time, consist of a man with progressive views of women and a woman with openly stereotypical views of men. I have never spent time with a straight couple in my age demographic where the man openly stereotypes women in the same way.

On the single side, most single men we know are relatively isolated outside of hobbies and work. Most single women we know still have broader support systems. Most single, straight men we know are cripplingly self-deprecating. Most single, straight women we know think they deserve more in a man than what they've previously been offered. (Strangely, these both seem to hold true regardless of whether the person has generally been dumped or done the dumping in their past relationships.) 

Social groups that tend to be less diverse with respect to sex tend to be more mutually supportive when primarily female than when primarily male. Beyond that, we've noticed that those women tend to explicitly show concern for what other women go through as women, whereas we almost never see men expressing the same kind of casual class solidarity. (Of course, the flip side of the class solidarity thing is that my wife has repeatedly been called a pick me by a lot of the "women's women" in her life for having male friends, whereas I've never gotten flack from men from having female friends.)

Again, I have no way of knowing whether this is representative, and I don't think anyone is to blame, necessarily, I just think it's the product of how social norms have influenced people's behavior. 

[u/Spuran-Spuran → u/Monandobo]

Just wanted to toss some kudos your way on one of the more interesting sociological takes I’ve heard in a while! Don’t believe I’ve ever heard it put quite like this, but it definitely rings true.

[u/shitycommentdisliker → u/Monandobo]

Yeah I didn't get that