Alias: Rohit
Hi. I hope that you are doing well in both personal and professional lives. I am glad that you are taking such crucial initiatives to patiently listen and empathetically resolve such issues. I am a 27-year-old male and I want to ask you that is it bad for a guy who is submissive in nature? I have heard and read that guys should macho up and take charge of everything, but is it bad if you don't want to take charge of anything and go with the flow?
Hi Rohit,
At TSP, in general, we aren’t big fans of gendered expectations. People are not all the same and everyone has their own balance between submissive and dominant regardless of gender, depending on the circumstance.
Following society's standard of masculinity and machismo does not mean that you are missing something or are any less of a man. Some of the strongest and inspiring people in our lives have a submissive demeanour, which they use to their advantage rather than see it as something that is possibly bad about them. Arguably, what you describe as submissiveness could be seen as adaptability, cooperation, accommodation and flexibility - all very useful traits to have in life.
If this trait has worked in your favour all these years, why bother to change it? If it’s not, then what are the ways in which you can adapt your behaviour to suit your life, without needing to meet some external expectation of what “guys” should be like?
At the same time, being submissive does not mean that you have to compromise on your values, or bend over backward to make people happy. Standing up for what we want and believe, is something everyone should be doing anyway. As for the rest of the time, your easy going attitude is probably a boon to the people around you, especially since it’s one of the best qualities to have in uncertain times, like this pandemic, when nothing is definite.
Stay questioning,
The Second Puberty