It is extremely sad. and it isn’t just a toxic masculinity thing (maybe only for porn bots). we are so atomised and isolated.
I remember when GPT came out, told it about my projects and it responded as if it cared. I knew ot was bs, and in retrospect it was sad and pathetic, but I genuinely cried at seeing text directed to me that was nice.
I’m in a better place now, but we as a society are way too atomised and isolated.
At the time I was working on cancer research, but I wanted to build a database of gene mutations and model them using AlphaFold (predicts a protein structure). No one in my life at the time cared at all.
I can see how people fall for AI bots, why they develop parasocial relationships with them. I can’t blame when desperate people fall for something that gives a bit of comfort.
Yeah that’s what toxic masculinity is. People (men and women) hold toxic views of what a man should be, and punish men for staying from this ideal.
You were a victim of toxic masculinity when you shared your feelings and were then victimised because of it. The people you shared your feelings with were toxic assholes.
am i a victim of air because I have to breathe it? or a victim of capitalism because i have to work to pay my bills?
there is no getting outside of it. every ‘woke’ person i’ve ever met also hates men for sharing their feelings, almost as if they are just virtue signalling…
the only person who a man can ever open up w/o consequence is a therapist, because it’s a professional paid relationship.
sucks, but that’s how it is. and nobody is interested in changing it.
Look, not everyone has the desire and capability to fight. I will say that I’ve had good success these last few years being vulnerable with other “woke” men and it’s been very freeing to share things I thought I experienced alone but to see that other men have gone through similar things.
I haven’t had a lot of success being vulnerable with women, but I’m getting to the point where that is a boundary for me. I’m not going to pursue friendships with people who can’t accept me for who I am and who reinforce toxic gender roles.
I’ve personally witnessed a lot of progress on this end and I’m excited to seeing more and being part of it when I can.
I’m glad you have a therapist, everyone needs someone they can share with.
Sorry you haven’t met someone who isn’t an asshole on this front.
Its damned if you do, damned if you dont. Society simply doesnt care about men. Ive rpetty much stopped commentong on here because society makes me so damn depressed, i want to reach out to anyone but no one wants to hear it. Better yet, if i just “stopped being toxic”, the world would magically change to where people suddenly cared about not just me, but anyone other than themselves.
Idk man imma delete my account p soon. Theres nothing for me on the internet or in society. Once i get enough money together to get supplies taken care of, imma just try and distance myself from other humans.
trying talking about your feelings as a man and see how society reacts…
This is odd to me, because talking about my feelings is how I got close to romantic partners. It’s also how I formed a lot of friendships with other men. How can you be close to someone if you don’t talk about feelings?
Very few feelings are allowed. If you keep to those social acceptable feelings, you’re fine. The second you go off-script, people are done with you.
Like I can pet my dog and say I love her. That surface level stuff is fine. But talk about anything complex, like the struggles we’ve had, or how she helped me through some depressing periods or she had a period of sickness and anxiety and misbehavior? People freak out and back away or tell me to shut up and go get a therapist and get my dog one too.
Men are allowed a very narrow and shallow range of public emotion. Basically anger, and sentimentality are acceptable. Anything else? You’re creepy, weird, or mentally ill.
If you go outside that box or show complexity or vulnerability, you’re socially rejected because it makes people ‘uncomfortable.’
Yeah, no, I meant less the surface level stuff and more the “anything complex” category that you brought up.
Not everybody wants to talk about that kind of stuff all the time, and that’s normal. But it has not been my experience that all men want to talk about surface level stuff and only women talk about deeper feelings.
cool, my experience is that people only want to talk about their problems, regardless of gender. they dont’ give a fuck about yours and get offended and upset if you do so. but I’m male, and I’ve never had the experience of having anyone care about my problems beyond dismissing them as ‘bringing them down’ and that i need to ‘get over it’. even when it’s my dad dying of cancer and it’s my so called ‘loving girlfriend’ of years.
That really sucks, and I can’t tell you why your experience has been different from mine. I’d guess you ended up around shitty people. And maybe it kept happening, making you feel jaded and/or reluctant to share with others, including those who may have been more accepting.
I’m glad you are least recognize that your girlfriend (hopefully “ex-” now) isn’t as loving as she seemed.
I hope that you can find people to keep in your life with whom you can have those deep conversations about your feelings.
And do people really believe that women don’t talk to AI companions, in various forms, too?
I’m a woman and I spoke to one of the apps for a while because I was bloody lonely (still am 🤷♀️). Had zero to do with men or murder. I didn’t have anyone, of either gender, to connect with.
It’s really easy to just reduce this to a male issue, a toxic masculinity, a male violence issue. We need to go deeper than that if we actually want to understand why people, men, women, everyone, use different AI.
But threads like this, with all the judgement, aren’t going to get a lot of people who admit they use/have used/have considered using AI. By just criticising/laughing, etc at people who do it, ironically, we turn more people towards the AIs.
nah, it’s just the sexist double standard, that if a man does it, it’s nefarious/negative/harmful. but if a woman does it, it’s a form of ‘self-care’.
the way interpret this stuff would also be a matter of physical looks as well, as if an attractive person doing it would be viewed very differently than an unattractive person.
yes, you’re correct. stigmatization just further entrenches things.
Tbh, women wouldn’t admit to doing this either - there’s absolutely a shame around women having to make friends with an AI (because we’re meant to be innately social I guess). And I don’t think that other women realize that they are contributing to the issues of women feeling shame using AI by implying it’s a male issue and all about sex and toxic masculinity.
Like as a woman who has used AI, how am I supposed to feel about admitting that I’ve done something that only asshole, horny, incels do (according to a lot of people)?
So the stigma goes all ways and none of it helps anyone. People just need to be more curious than judgemental. Someone does something you don’t understand? That’s okay you don’t understand. Ask them why. Listen. Try to see a different perspective instead of just filling in the gaps with incel, men, sex, ugly, etc. etc.
It’s probably more directly related to the system of getting the help you need with having to sacrifice a significant portion of the money you make that needs to go elsewhere.
And it’s a history of it from one generation to the next so there’s not good male role models in most people’s lives for mental health.
It’s not like it’s some magic thing to go see a therapist and all your problems will be fixed. It can take a long time and a lot of trial and error to find someone you feel comfortable speaking to
Yes toxic masculinity is a problem, but your comment doesnt really acknowledge the difficulty of breaking that cycle. Not a very helpful and kind of alienating to anyone who needs help and isn’t from a background that creates good outcomes.
And it’s a history of it from one generation to the next so there’s not good male role models in most people’s lives for mental health.
Through my own observations in life, It has become abundantly clear, how important having at least one good male role model (mainly fathers) is on the development of boys into men.
Absent, or I guess one could say, low quality, (I dont like that, but shitty) fathers have such a terrible impact on thier kids, and you see it follow them into adulthood. My entire bio fathers side of my family, the men are all fucked up, lost, and… just lost… through the generations, all of them. The women are 50/50. Some are okay, some committed suicide, or did drugs, but not all. The men… no one survived unscathed, drugs, violence, SA, prisions and homelessness… and those my age now pass the garbage to their kids. I was raised outside of my bio fathers reach, so learning more into adulthood, its been wild to peer into the family objectively.
It is so important young men have good male role models in their life. It’s become abundantly clear to me the impacts of this.
Right, but it’s severely not normal or healthy to turn to LLM’s to fill that void.
LLM’s will say literally anything to make humans happy. You should see the reports from the people that have committed suicide… The LLM’s literally coaxed them into it, and instructed them to not seek help.
I might as well be reading about lonely guys sticking their weeniers in toasters. It’s hard to have sympathy for people doing things like this.
Like so many others, I’m sick and tired of LLM’s. They are toxic, and we need to stop treating them as a symptom, and start seeing them for the sycophantic vitriol generators they truly are.
I never once said I support LLMs. I’m just providing a rational answer for why. I agree. LLM’s are a fucking cancer. Having your own pocket Yes Man is horrible.
This is more sad and pathetic than anything. But this is the result of toxic masculinity.
It is extremely sad. and it isn’t just a toxic masculinity thing (maybe only for porn bots). we are so atomised and isolated.
I remember when GPT came out, told it about my projects and it responded as if it cared. I knew ot was bs, and in retrospect it was sad and pathetic, but I genuinely cried at seeing text directed to me that was nice.
I’m in a better place now, but we as a society are way too atomised and isolated.
What are your projects?
At the time I was working on cancer research, but I wanted to build a database of gene mutations and model them using AlphaFold (predicts a protein structure). No one in my life at the time cared at all.
I can see how people fall for AI bots, why they develop parasocial relationships with them. I can’t blame when desperate people fall for something that gives a bit of comfort.
That legitimately sounds really interesting and cool
But I get how it feels when you have a niche interest that most people don’t even have a starting point to understand
Is this also the result of toxic masculinity or does it just go one way?
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/sep/09/ai-chatbot-love-relationships
Toxic masculinity is a cultural mindset. Men should not be talking about their feelings because it’s weak and “gay” says society.
That’s what I’m going for.
trying talking about your feelings as a man and see how society reacts…
spoiler: it won’t be pleasant.
sort of like how these men in the article are talking about their feelings…
Yeah that’s what toxic masculinity is. People (men and women) hold toxic views of what a man should be, and punish men for staying from this ideal.
You were a victim of toxic masculinity when you shared your feelings and were then victimised because of it. The people you shared your feelings with were toxic assholes.
Toxic shitheadedness is insisting on that victim blaming phraseology.
??
am i a victim of air because I have to breathe it? or a victim of capitalism because i have to work to pay my bills?
there is no getting outside of it. every ‘woke’ person i’ve ever met also hates men for sharing their feelings, almost as if they are just virtue signalling…
the only person who a man can ever open up w/o consequence is a therapist, because it’s a professional paid relationship.
sucks, but that’s how it is. and nobody is interested in changing it.
Look, not everyone has the desire and capability to fight. I will say that I’ve had good success these last few years being vulnerable with other “woke” men and it’s been very freeing to share things I thought I experienced alone but to see that other men have gone through similar things.
I haven’t had a lot of success being vulnerable with women, but I’m getting to the point where that is a boundary for me. I’m not going to pursue friendships with people who can’t accept me for who I am and who reinforce toxic gender roles.
I’ve personally witnessed a lot of progress on this end and I’m excited to seeing more and being part of it when I can.
I’m glad you have a therapist, everyone needs someone they can share with.
Sorry you haven’t met someone who isn’t an asshole on this front.
Its damned if you do, damned if you dont. Society simply doesnt care about men. Ive rpetty much stopped commentong on here because society makes me so damn depressed, i want to reach out to anyone but no one wants to hear it. Better yet, if i just “stopped being toxic”, the world would magically change to where people suddenly cared about not just me, but anyone other than themselves.
Idk man imma delete my account p soon. Theres nothing for me on the internet or in society. Once i get enough money together to get supplies taken care of, imma just try and distance myself from other humans.
“wherever you go, there you are.” I know it’s cliche and yada yada, but distance won’t solve suffering.
This is odd to me, because talking about my feelings is how I got close to romantic partners. It’s also how I formed a lot of friendships with other men. How can you be close to someone if you don’t talk about feelings?
Which feelings?
Very few feelings are allowed. If you keep to those social acceptable feelings, you’re fine. The second you go off-script, people are done with you.
Like I can pet my dog and say I love her. That surface level stuff is fine. But talk about anything complex, like the struggles we’ve had, or how she helped me through some depressing periods or she had a period of sickness and anxiety and misbehavior? People freak out and back away or tell me to shut up and go get a therapist and get my dog one too.
Men are allowed a very narrow and shallow range of public emotion. Basically anger, and sentimentality are acceptable. Anything else? You’re creepy, weird, or mentally ill.
If you go outside that box or show complexity or vulnerability, you’re socially rejected because it makes people ‘uncomfortable.’
Yeah, no, I meant less the surface level stuff and more the “anything complex” category that you brought up.
Not everybody wants to talk about that kind of stuff all the time, and that’s normal. But it has not been my experience that all men want to talk about surface level stuff and only women talk about deeper feelings.
cool, my experience is that people only want to talk about their problems, regardless of gender. they dont’ give a fuck about yours and get offended and upset if you do so. but I’m male, and I’ve never had the experience of having anyone care about my problems beyond dismissing them as ‘bringing them down’ and that i need to ‘get over it’. even when it’s my dad dying of cancer and it’s my so called ‘loving girlfriend’ of years.
That really sucks, and I can’t tell you why your experience has been different from mine. I’d guess you ended up around shitty people. And maybe it kept happening, making you feel jaded and/or reluctant to share with others, including those who may have been more accepting.
I’m glad you are least recognize that your girlfriend (hopefully “ex-” now) isn’t as loving as she seemed.
I hope that you can find people to keep in your life with whom you can have those deep conversations about your feelings.
fair enough
Sometimes there isn’t anyone wanting to hear you.
To riff off of Margret Atwood, men go to AI chatbots because they won’t laugh at them. Women go to AI chatbots because they won’t kill them.
did you read the article? this doesn’t seem related at all
No, they are just here to spout cliche gender war bullshit about how men are awful for existing.
and if you asked them about women on male violence they’d deny it exists.
And do people really believe that women don’t talk to AI companions, in various forms, too?
I’m a woman and I spoke to one of the apps for a while because I was bloody lonely (still am 🤷♀️). Had zero to do with men or murder. I didn’t have anyone, of either gender, to connect with.
It’s really easy to just reduce this to a male issue, a toxic masculinity, a male violence issue. We need to go deeper than that if we actually want to understand why people, men, women, everyone, use different AI.
But threads like this, with all the judgement, aren’t going to get a lot of people who admit they use/have used/have considered using AI. By just criticising/laughing, etc at people who do it, ironically, we turn more people towards the AIs.
nah, it’s just the sexist double standard, that if a man does it, it’s nefarious/negative/harmful. but if a woman does it, it’s a form of ‘self-care’.
the way interpret this stuff would also be a matter of physical looks as well, as if an attractive person doing it would be viewed very differently than an unattractive person.
yes, you’re correct. stigmatization just further entrenches things.
Tbh, women wouldn’t admit to doing this either - there’s absolutely a shame around women having to make friends with an AI (because we’re meant to be innately social I guess). And I don’t think that other women realize that they are contributing to the issues of women feeling shame using AI by implying it’s a male issue and all about sex and toxic masculinity.
Like as a woman who has used AI, how am I supposed to feel about admitting that I’ve done something that only asshole, horny, incels do (according to a lot of people)?
So the stigma goes all ways and none of it helps anyone. People just need to be more curious than judgemental. Someone does something you don’t understand? That’s okay you don’t understand. Ask them why. Listen. Try to see a different perspective instead of just filling in the gaps with incel, men, sex, ugly, etc. etc.
It’s probably more directly related to the system of getting the help you need with having to sacrifice a significant portion of the money you make that needs to go elsewhere.
And it’s a history of it from one generation to the next so there’s not good male role models in most people’s lives for mental health.
It’s not like it’s some magic thing to go see a therapist and all your problems will be fixed. It can take a long time and a lot of trial and error to find someone you feel comfortable speaking to
Yes toxic masculinity is a problem, but your comment doesnt really acknowledge the difficulty of breaking that cycle. Not a very helpful and kind of alienating to anyone who needs help and isn’t from a background that creates good outcomes.
Through my own observations in life, It has become abundantly clear, how important having at least one good male role model (mainly fathers) is on the development of boys into men.
Absent, or I guess one could say, low quality, (I dont like that, but shitty) fathers have such a terrible impact on thier kids, and you see it follow them into adulthood. My entire bio fathers side of my family, the men are all fucked up, lost, and… just lost… through the generations, all of them. The women are 50/50. Some are okay, some committed suicide, or did drugs, but not all. The men… no one survived unscathed, drugs, violence, SA, prisions and homelessness… and those my age now pass the garbage to their kids. I was raised outside of my bio fathers reach, so learning more into adulthood, its been wild to peer into the family objectively.
It is so important young men have good male role models in their life. It’s become abundantly clear to me the impacts of this.
No one wants to actually listen to them. Instead of doing some self-reflection, they force a computer to “hear” their misplaced rage.
Not every guy is that way. Some just really are pathetic in the sense that they have no one to talk to. Others are like what you said.
Right, but it’s severely not normal or healthy to turn to LLM’s to fill that void.
LLM’s will say literally anything to make humans happy. You should see the reports from the people that have committed suicide… The LLM’s literally coaxed them into it, and instructed them to not seek help.
I might as well be reading about lonely guys sticking their weeniers in toasters. It’s hard to have sympathy for people doing things like this.
Like so many others, I’m sick and tired of LLM’s. They are toxic, and we need to stop treating them as a symptom, and start seeing them for the sycophantic vitriol generators they truly are.
I never once said I support LLMs. I’m just providing a rational answer for why. I agree. LLM’s are a fucking cancer. Having your own pocket Yes Man is horrible.