Why Men Are So Limited Conversationally

"Ugh, gotta babysit my kids this weekend."

In 2021 and 2022, I was pretty active in this F3 Nation Men’s Workout Group thing. I liked it for a while, then it annoyed me. Most of the guys were nice and genuine, but for 5–7 guys, their entitlement could power Argentina for six months. That got tedious. Plus, I was struggling with conceiving (still am) and a lot of these dudes were flippant-as-fuck fathers, i.e. “Wifey’s away, guess I’m babysitting the kids this weekend.” It got tedious there too.

While I was in F3, tho, I led a bunch of workouts. I actually led one with an addiction theme, which was cool.

Right before my wife and I did IVF the first time, I led a fertility-themed workout at Walsh Ranch, west of Fort Worth. I did exercises that started with “I,” “V,” and “F.” Get it? Nice. I did some other stuff too. I honestly forget most of that workout minus the letters.

After I was done and did a prayer circle, I had probably six guys out of 21 come up to me and say, “Hey, my wife and I had four miscarriages” or “Hey, we did IVF three times.” In some cases, the guys had never spoken to me before minus a few nods at other workouts, and they were opening / leading with that.

While I loved the transparency, I always wonder: do guys do that on the regular? Are they capable of that? Do they have people to talk to about bigger, relevant topics aside from their wife and maybe their dad? It seems like a big societal question.

I’ve tried to answer it a few times. When you speak specifically of men, who are often raised different than girls are raised, I think you come to a few different conclusions in the aggregate. Needs to be said that every guy is different, every dad is different, and every father-son relationship is different. In general, though, I don’t think guys are “conditioned” to focus on conversational quality in any context other than: