A collection of men.

Dear Self,

A while ago I realised that I was a man.

I always knew that I was male, but the fact that being male means in societies eyes that I am ‘a man’ only just occurred to me.

Being a man comes with a lot of baggage. Some of which is actually about getting a massive free ride purely because of my gender. I still call that baggage because I don’t feel that has actually helped me create the kind of world I want to live in even though it looks like it has made my life much easier.

Some of the baggage is more obviously weighing me down every day.

Last night I walked into a room of 10 or so men (mostly strangers) and I felt quite unsafe. My baggage about men is about them not wanting to have me around.

Most of my life I haven’t had male friends.

It has been difficult for me to have friendships with men because I don’t trust them to be nice to me.

Recently, out of nowhere this has started to change and I have started to create close connections with some pretty special men.

However a group of 10 men is not so straight forward for me.

It took about 3 minutes for me to see that each of these men were bringing their own fears and insecurities to the session. I realised I was with other men who wanted to find ways to be male and not be an idiot. It seemed to be understood that doing that was going to be good for all of the relationships in our lives.

I’m really grateful to Jimmy and Luke for setting up the Men’s Collective. It’s just what I have been looking for.

Luke

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