Men in Love: A Crisis of Emotional Expression in Brooklyn
Manhattan Study Reveals Males Can Feel Feelings, Struggle to Articulate Them
Groundbreaking research from NYU’s Gender Studies Department has confirmed what women have suspected for decades: men are theoretically capable of experiencing love, but accessing and expressing those feelings requires a level of emotional vocabulary and introspection that most males have not been equipped with, resulting in relationships where one person is emotionally fluent and the other is essentially trying to have feelings in a language they never learned. The study, which followed 500 heterosexual couples across Manhattan and Brooklyn, found that while men do experience deep romantic attachment, they typically express it through actions like “making sure your phone is charged” and “remembering to buy the snacks you like,” rather than, you know, using actual words.
“My boyfriend loves me deeply, I think,” explained Park Slope resident Sarah Martinez, who has been dating the same man for four years without ever hearing him articulate his feelings unprompted. “I know because he programmed my number as an emergency contact, sends me articles about topics I’m interested in, and once cried during the last ten minutes of ‘Up.’ But if I ask him how he feels about our relationship, he says ‘it’s good’ and looks panicked. I’ve basically become fluent in translating male silence into emotional meaning. It’s exhausting but apparently necessary.”
The study found that men in love typically cycle through several predictable stages of emotional expression: first, the complete denial that feelings exist (“I’m just hanging out with someone consistently”); second, the acknowledgment that feelings might exist but shouldn’t be examined too closely (“Yeah, I guess I like her”); third, the grudging admission that feelings definitely exist but are frightening (“I don’t know, it’s weird, I miss her when she’s gone”); and finally, if they’re lucky, the eventual acceptance that they’re in love, usually expressed through practical demonstrations rather than verbal articulation.
“I knew my husband loved me when he started researching the best carbon monoxide detectors unprompted,” explained Upper West Side resident Jennifer Chen, married for eight years. “Not romantic by traditional standards, but for him, ‘I want to keep you alive and safe’ is basically a love sonnet. He still can’t say ‘I love you’ without it sounding like he’s confessing to a crime, but he updates my insurance beneficiaries and reminds me to schedule dental appointments. Same emotional energy, different expression method.”
The research identified several common male approaches to expressing love without actually expressing love: fixing things around the apartment without being asked, remembering obscure details about your childhood, defending you in arguments even when you’re clearly wrong, and learning to cook the one meal you mentioned liking seven months ago. These actions, while genuinely loving, often leave female partners feeling like they’re in a relationship with someone who cares deeply but has been specifically trained never to say so out loud.
Manhattan therapist Dr. Rebecca Torres has built her practice around helping couples bridge what she calls “the emotional articulation gap.” “Women come in saying ‘I don’t know if he loves me because he never says it,’ and men come in saying ‘How does she not know? I just spent three hours researching the best way to organize her closet,'” Torres explained. “They’re both expressing and receiving love, just in completely different languages. It’s like one person is speaking English and the other is communicating exclusively through furniture assembly and car maintenance. Both are valid, but translation is required.”
The study also found that men are significantly more comfortable expressing emotions about sports teams, video games, and fictional characters than about their own relationships. “My boyfriend can deliver a twenty-minute monologue analyzing the emotional arc of his favorite TV character, complete with tears,” noted Brooklyn resident Amanda Rodriguez. “But when I ask how he feels about us moving in together, he says ‘seems fine’ and changes the subject. He has the emotional capacity. He’s just saving it for things that feel less vulnerable than his actual life.”
Younger men raised with more emphasis on emotional intelligence are slowly changing the pattern, though progress is incremental. “Gen Z men are slightly better at this,” observed Dr. Torres. “They’ll say ‘I have feelings’ which is an improvement over previous generations who denied feelings existed. But they still struggle with the next step, which is identifying and articulating what those feelings actually are. We’re maybe two generations away from men who can say ‘I feel vulnerable when you’re away’ without immediately following it up with ‘but anyway, did you see the game?'”
The study concludes that men are capable of profound love but have been systematically discouraged from developing the language to express it, resulting in relationships where emotional labor is disproportionately shouldered by partners who have to interpret silence, actions, and occasional grunts of acknowledgment as declarations of affection. Researchers suggest that teaching emotional vocabulary should begin in childhood, though they acknowledge that dismantling centuries of “boys don’t cry” cultural programming might take slightly longer than the average research grant allows.
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SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/men-in-love/.
By: Annika Steinmann.
The post Men in Love: A Crisis of Emotional Expression in Brooklyn appeared first on SpinTaxi Magazine.
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