I want to get a clear idea about this topic because this is a topic I genuinely do not understand. What does it mean when people say this?
When a man just vents about something, going into details about how a situation makes him feel, is he too emotional when he vents? If he feels conflicted about a personal problem he's going through without a clear direction of where he needs to go, is he also in his emotions?
Or is it simply a way to describe a man who lets the actions of other woman dictate his mood for the rest of the day (cuz in this instance I do agree.). My understanding on his topic is very limited so I appreciate the different perspectives regarding this topic.
You live in Canada and you hear that men are 'too in their emotions'? I would've thought that men being emotional would be all the vogue right now ..
I can't tell you what anyone means by that statement, because everyone has a different idea of what is good/acceptable or not. But for me personally, emotional venting is not a masculine trait. Frustrated, boiling over emotion is the domain of the feminine, and even in a woman I find it annoying when taken to the extreme.
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As a man, there is nothing wrong with feeling what I would call primary negative emotions, such as fear or sadness. It is very healthy, and possibly something men generally don't do enough of.
What sets him apart is how he responds and reacts to feeling these primary emotions, which produce secondary emotions that may be positive or negative (or, as I prefer, constructive or destructive to his own psyche). Frustration and venting are what I would call negative secondary emotions. The worst of all secondary emotions, in my opinion, is resentment, because it contains all the chaotic and destructive elements of frustration while also allocating responsibility away from himself, providing him with no path to resolution. Anger is not a negative emotion (not to be confused with frustration) as it can be focused and applied to something constructive.
To understand the importance of feeling good secondary emotions, there was an article I read years ago in Scientific American that showed evidence that determination (probably one of the best, most consolidating emotions anyone can feel) is actually 'repurposed fear'. That is to say that somewhere between the production of fear and its expression, in some people, its psychic activity/energy is transformed, redirected and focused toward something conscious, deliberate and constructive, and in this way fear becomes an asset rather than a liability.
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The reason why I say that expressions of frustration, chaotic emotion, and venting are the domain of the feminine is because much of the time, in my opinion, a woman's emotion is a signal not to herself but to others. Woman are naturally more inclined to helplessness and the need for others to approach and take responsibility for her, primarily because of her physical helplessness, but also emotionally (one might say that attracting emotional help is a way of proving that she can attract physical resources to her aid, and tying those resources to her long after the immediate need is past). That's why men respond energetically to the 'damsel in distress' signal. I believe such signals also attract dominant personalities toward submissive ones, which serves all kinds of necessary functions.
But in short, for a man helplessness is not a virtue, and so over-emotionality is not either. Being emotionally grounded is healthy, and is one of the means of attracting women and establishing a deep connection with them, as they feel safe with a man who reflects a certain understanding of something that is so much a part of them. But in the end she respects (and other men respect) not the emotion but the ability to transform it into decisive, determined action that transforms problems into opportunities and gains.
