Your Boat Needs A Crew
Your Boat Needs A Crew
Every meeting is an inspiration — not because we all sit around patting ourselves on the back, but because everyone, every week, has So. Much. Going. Down.
Happy Friday!
And greetings from, well, in front of a computer screen. The sun is shining, the surf is sudsing and the clouds promise rain before dusk in the forest.
(Oops — that’s rule #1 broken)
For those of you new to these pages, hello 👋 My name is David and I’m a writer, outdoor instructor and cyclist-at-large with Thighs of Steel. I write stories that help you and me understand the world (and ourselves) a little better.
Welcome to edition 335 — the year CE in which Samudragupta succeeded Chandragupta I as king of the Gupta Empire.
Which, quite frankly, shows up how shockingly little I know of Indian history.
Luckily for everyone involved, today’s story isn’t about the heroic ‘King of Poets’ who possessed ‘an abundance of elephants and horses and money and grain’.
Today’s stories (plural!) are about circles and snowflakes.
Your Boat Needs A Crew
What are you most fearful of or what stops you from bringing every part of yourself to a relationship and sharing your whole heart, warts and all, with your partner?
I’m a newish member of a Men’s Circle, a group of guys who meet every fortnight to listen (and talk). We also drink tea and eat biscuits, but mainly we listen (and talk).
Every meeting is an inspiration — not because we all sit around patting ourselves on the back, but because everyone, every week, has So. Much. Going. Down.
No one’s behaviour is perfect all the time, of course, but the circle leaves me feeling that it’s outright miraculous how generous, loving and, well, functional everyone is most of the time, given what’s going down in our lives and in our heads all the time.
And the people around this circle aren’t special (no offence). Every person I meet on the street, in the library or at the sauna will also be wrestling with just as many demons, internal and external, I’m sure.
The circle changes the way I see the world:
Someone’s rude? Wow, sorry. You’ve got a lot going down right now. (Probably needs a circle…)
Someone’s kind, despite everything that’s going down right now? Double wow — thank you. (Probably needs a circle…)
Everyone — in the circle and beyond — is doing their best and, transcending the banality of the motivational poster, we really are all in this together.
Popping The Question
The question at the top was a prompt brought to this week’s circle by one of the men.
But it wasn’t his question. It was a question he’d been given after asking several women another question:
If you could put just one question to a whole group of guys, what would you ask?
Unanimously, every time, this was their answer:
What are you most fearful of or what stops you from bringing every part of yourself to a relationship and sharing your whole heart, warts and all, with your partner?
Big question, huh?
But what was really interesting was the unanimous response from men around the circle. We threw the question right back:
Wait a second — are you sure you’re ready to hold space for me to be vulnerable with you?
Depth Or Distrust?
It’s not that men didn’t also want a deeper level of connection in their relationships, but I think it’s fair to say that we all shared past experiences where our partners haven’t always welcomed male vulnerability or seen it as a strength.
Without breaking any confidences, many of us had been burned in the past when we have tried to share wholeheartedly and found our vulnerability rejected or pushed back, a shaming experience that contributed to the breakdown of several relationships.
Hence the distrust around the circle: if we feel that we’ve been punished for showing vulnerability in the past, what makes you different? Why should we trust you when you ask us for wholeheartedness?
I refuse to conclude from this apparent impasse that our partners might be saying they want one thing when they secretly want another — that sounds pretty patronising to me.
I reckon there’s something much more interesting going on here.
You’ll Need A Surgeon For Open Heart Surgery
(Note: I’ll be talking in terms of ‘men’ and ‘women’ in the context of heterosexual relationships here because that’s how it was framed in our discussion and, as a cis heterosexual male, I don’t feel qualified to talk across the whole rainbow of humanity’s wonderful combinations and pollinations.
I’d be super interested to hear how it plays out from your perspective if you fancy replying to this email.)
I think it’s perfectly possible that a woman can desire more wholeheartedness from their partner, while, at exactly the same time, the man in this relationship finds that his wholeheartedness isn’t always positively received.
These two experiences are not incompatible.
One of the distinctive traits of Man Sloth Mode is that men, particularly those in relationships, become increasingly dependent on their partner — another experience that was echoed around the circle.
It’s more than likely that your partner really does want you to be more vulnerable with them. It’s also highly likely that it’s neither healthy nor possible for them to carry the weight of being your only emotional support network.
It’s one thing to open up to your partner, it’s quite another to tear into your flesh, rip out your ribcage and spill blood and guts in the hope that they can perform open heart surgery.
(Note to self: you’ll need a surgeon for that.)
Shooting Ourselves In The Face (As Per)
In general, women survive relationship breakdown much better than men, primarily because, well, for example:
The analyses reveal that women have larger networks and receive supports from multiple sources, while men tend to rely on their spouses exclusively.
Once again, the support systems that men fail to put in place around themselves, in combination with an overreliance on one (let’s be honest) caregiver, is shooting ourselves in the face.
(I say face rather than foot here because, frankly, I’ve always wanted to start a new idiom. But it’s also a more graphic reflection of the damage we’re doing to ourselves, not to mention the messy clean up job required of other people.)
Women want more vulnerability from their men, but men don’t trust that they will be held, most probably based on past experiences where they have become overreliant on a single partner.
It’s a heartbreaking cycle that will only be broken when men find emotional support from outside the pair bond.
Your Boat Needs A Crew
Reluctance to share wholehearted vulnerability comes from a deep-rooted fear of rejection.
In answer to your question, women, that’s what we’re most afraid of.
But — but but but — that fear only looms so large for us because, most often, you and you alone represent at least, ooh, 80 percent of our entire emotional support network.
No wonder we’re petrified of rejection. Your acceptance is (almost) everything to us.
And that, my friends, is an INSANE way to live our lives.
It’s totally unrealistic to expect one person to carry such pivotal weight in someone else’s life — no wonder sometimes our vulnerability is rejected. It’s too much to bear.
The solution is to create an independent emotional support network — like a Men’s Circle — that can nourish us with the affirmation, acceptance and assurance that we need to feel heard.
(Hint: a network is not one person. Shoot for twelve and you might get six.)
High up in the rigging of love, with that net beneath to catch us, the rejection of one person, however important they may have once been, is not the be-all and end-all.
It’s just one person who couldn’t accept your wholehearted beingness.
In the words of shame and vulnerability researcher Brené Brown: if you miss the boat, it wasn’t your boat.
And that’s a muuuuuch easier lesson to accept if you’ve got your whole crew beside you on the harbourside, friends and comrades who’ll buy you fish and chips, help re-pack your sea chest, and wait with you until your ship finally comes in.
Days of Adventure 2022: 117 (+1)
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On Sunday, I’m hitching a ride up to Scotland to continue my slow exploration of the British Isles, this time the 500km or so from Edinburgh to Inverness.
What started in Summer 2020 as a post-lockdown liberation ride has somehow evolved into a multi-year study of what it means to adventure in a constantly changing landscape and society.
There’s a rainbow outside my window. I’m excited.
Snowflake
As a member of the urban liberal elites, I was delighted to see that Stewart Lee has not one but two standup specials currently available on the taxpayer-funded BBC iPlayer.
This little bonus story is three things that I learned (because all great comedy teaches you something) about the human condition in 2020s Britain.
Here’s the blurb from the Beeb:
Stewart Lee is a ‘snowflake’, and in this hour from his tour, the Bafta-winning comedian illustrates how being ‘woke’ doesn’t mean having to sacrifice freedom of speech.
Political correctness ≠ health and safety legislation
There’s a whole generation that’s confused political correctness with health and safety legislation.
I can’t quote the whole bit Stewart Lee does, but the reason you can’t ‘drink down hot broth by the chiropodist’s workstation’ isn’t because of political correctness gone mad and the woke brigade saying it’s offensive to transgender people.
It might be because of health and safety legislation gone mad, but that’s a different argument.
On balance, political correctness is a good thing
I know there’s awful collateral damage: people losing their jobs because they used a word they didn’t know had changed its meaning. Or they showed a load of kids a film and the kids couldn’t believe it had ever been made. All that’s bad, right.
But, on balance, the political correctness, the wokeness, it is better than what we had before. Because what we had before, if you remember, was the entire 1970s. Which, in retrospect, we now realise was unacceptable.
Contrary to what some people declare, you can say anything these days
… As Stewart Lee ably demonstrates with a 12 minute bit about ‘the c-word, c$&t’. I counted: ten times Stewart Lee says the c-word in that bit. Ten times. On the BBC.
Admittedly, one swear word doesn’t necessarily stand in for all the things that people feel that they can’t say these days.
But, compared to 20 years ago, there are many, many — almost infinitely many — more public platforms for every strand of opinion from across the political spectrum.
This includes not only the UK Prime Ministership and the US Presidency, but also mainstream media outlets that pay people to espouse even the most extreme views.
For a Netflix standup special you’ve got to get all the things that you can’t say because of political correctness gone mad and the woke brigade and then you put them all together and you say them and you find that you can say them after all, with the full approval of all Netflix’s advertisers and lawyers and shareholders for a $60m payout and a Grammy award — and that, being shown all over the world, that’s called ‘being cancelled’.
Snowflake is a surprisingly optimistic show for Stewart Lee — hell’s toast, he even shows some appreciation for his audience. Getting soft in his old age.
For me, the show is grounded in a thought experiment: what if we at least entertain the possibility that human society — political correctness and the snowflake woke brigade included — is indeed fumbling its way towards a happier future for everyone?
What then? How would you participate?
Unlock The Commons
The stories I write are totally free to read and always have been.
I find it beautifully amazing, then, that some people actually choose to send me £30 per year to support this regular blend of ‘curiosity, insight, fine writing and infectious sense of adventure’.
These contributions keep this space free for everyone.
Heartfelt thanks to Andy, Claire, Tudor, John, Harri, Becky, Illia, Joanna, Maryla, Cass, Georgie, James, Joe, Libby, David, Tessa and JMJ.
If you’d like to join them and chip in with an annual or monthly contribution, hit this button:
BONUS: I’m putting together a physical book-like collection of all the Days of Adventure stories that I’ve written over the past two years. It’ll be sent out FREE to paying subscribers (UK only, sorry!) some time in the New Year.
I’m also motivated to an unhealthy degree by in-group approval. Every time you share a story that you’ve enjoyed, I get a load of new subscribers and that makes me feel very funny deep down inside:
Any comments or questions to hurl my way? You can reply to this email like any other and turn this extended monologue into a proper conversation.
Thank you 🙏
Three Small Things At The End
#1: Yes — do the same thing over and over again!
Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is not the first sign of madness. It’s practice. It’s protest. It’s the first stage of success.
#2: A shower is as good as a nap
Speaking from that seventh dimension where time and space distort in alarming ways (AKA parenthood), a friend recently discovered a new law of human psychoanatomy:
A shower is as good as a nap.
It’s not like new parents have much choice between the two, so even if the science doesn’t back it up, let’s just assume that it’s true, yeah?
While we’re on the topic, and for those of us who have the luxury of ‘immersion bathing’, those wily scientists suggest that a hot bath might be a better choice for ‘fatigue, stress, pain, and smile’.
#3: Free public speaking masterclass
My dear friend (what do you care?) West End director and performance coach Tom O’Brien is offering a free online masterclass on 29 November to teach y’all how to develop unshakeable confidence in your public speaking.
And, yes, Instagram reels are public speaking!
Nothing to lose but your fear, right?
That’s it for this week. Thank you, as always, for reading to the very end.
I’m off to pack for a ten-day cycling and camping trip around Scotland through the last days of November. I’ve never done anything like this before, not at this latitude, not in winter.
It could be a terrible idea — join me next week to find out!
Until then, do your best.
Big love,
dc: