My complicated relationship with men.

We don't live in the 1950s, right? Times are changing. But we do still live in a world where so much is still left unsaid. There are so many inherited, archaic ideas of what it means to be a man. It's still touchy. It's still really uncomfortable to be vulnerable with other men. But that is why I'm making this. I want to explore the question, why is this still so hard? And what can we do about it? My attempts to decode other men. as a way to better understand what it means for me to be a man go as far back as my earliest memories in life. I grew up in a very open household, okay? It wasn't traditional in this way. And still, as a function of being a part of society, a big part of my education on what it means to be a straight man is to be powerful, unemotional, under control. And you see this in a lot of different places in human life, right? But there's one area where you see a completely other side men and that is sports. There is something about sports that feels like it unlocks the key to entering a parallel universe where all the normal rules don't apply and it is in this world of sports and basically nowhere else that you see men freely and openly dance and hug and cry and kiss each other and just all the things that you don't normally see. Some of my very earliest memories of my dad are of us watching the world cup and in fact these memories go so far back to the very beginnings of anything that i remember in this life that i just recall the tv being on and they're just being two teams i don't know who playing each other world cups over the years marked the time of extreme excitement, of a lot of emotion, and of time spent together. And it's probably for those reasons that those memories have stuck all this time later. When I was 13 years old, it was the 2010 World Cup Final, and I watched Iniesta score the extra time winner and absolutely lose his mind. What I witnessed was a man achieving in some ways the pinnacle of manhood. Four years later, I'm sitting on my living room couch watching Argentina lose in that year's World Cup final against Germany to that incredible Götze strike again in extra time and my dad is sitting there next to me crying. My dad is an emotionally expressive guy more than I think most dads and still it's not common for me to see him break down next to me. Eight more years later I'm a full-grown man. And I am jumping in ecstasy with him in my arms as Montiel scores the winning penalty against France. At some level, on many levels, none of this makes any sense, right? We're watching groups of men kick a ball around against each other. Men that we don't know, right? And we're going nuts in reaction to it. I was witnessing examples of what it means to be a man. It's come to feel very precious to me because those open, unedited displays of emotion in the men that are important in my life are considerably more difficult to come by outside of that context outside of the world of sports so it's all well and good when you can jump and cry and celebrate but not all of life is spent in stadiums or in front of TVs watching important matches and if you don't participate in that world there are almost no equivalent means of getting to the same Result creating those connections if you will there's a lack of vulnerability And it feels like oftentimes especially in a group of guys the only two options you have are to make fun of each other You know, like to tease each other or mess with each other or to wrestle. And I have found I can really enjoy that sometimes. It's a great way to release stress. But there are certain situations that call for a different kind of communication. That's where it all gets really tricky. And very quickly, you can be not man enough because you're too emotional or you're too sensitive. And there's a lot of stigma and a lot of barriers that exist where we're not gonna go there. And because of this... In a lot of the rest of my life outside of sports, I feel my guard is up in a lot of situations with other men. I'm not capable of doing the teasing or wrestling all the time. It's something that I can do sometimes, but I have other needs. I've felt like I've had to overcorrect in the other direction because already I was in the arts and already I was really expressive and sensitive, but it was weird and uncomfortable for other guys. So I put extra effort into making fun of each other or whatever so that I could be accepted. because it was a fear of not being understood. But it's funny because even with my own dad, it has been difficult getting to that place, breaking through some of those barriers. In an episode I just released on No Backup Plan, my podcast, which I'll link to in the description if you want to check out, we explored this exact topic. There was a particular event that took place that nearly made our relationship fall apart, and it forced us to communicate on a level we never had before. And I want to share this with you because it has made me rethink what communicating with other men. can look like. Together the two of us went on a six-month work trip through Latin America, which sounded like the dream, you know, for a father and son. To shoot these Spanish videos to teach first-year college students how to speak the language. And it ended up becoming an absolute train wreck. It was a mess. How would you describe that very, very first day on set? I was gonna run audio. We were going to save. This was so crazy. Someone needed to stop us. We needed to stop each other or something. But we were going to save because the budget started getting tight. Have me run audio. What's the harm in that? We get a couple lavaliers. So you were going to direct and run audio at the same time. I had tried to do audio with you on set before that using bad equipment. This equipment that you bought weeks prior that were problems on that first shoot, even before we went on this trip, you hadn't even checked that yet, right? You didn't even know there were problems with the audio gear. No, I knew there were problems. And you didn't communicate that to me? And I'm like, you know what? This is good enough. I was like in some kind of like crazy, we'll make this work type mode. But this was just the beginning of me. This was just the beginning, yeah. I was doing a crappy job of the audio, not directing well. There was no story. That first day on set where I make the discovery that this audio is completely... unusable i am afraid actually for the first time about the six months ahead of us because i'm like oh we are in trouble and that is where i think this idea of this incredible voyage father-son bonding that image begins to crumble i mean that was just the beginning it kept getting deeper and deeper and worse insanely poor communication on your side you know you wouldn't let me know about upcoming problems until they blew up in our faces throughout those six months and what that resulted in was an inability to trust you i felt jumpy around you because i'm like can he do anything very quickly i lost a lot of respect for you after day one or on day two we more or less decided that i needed to be the one directing quite early on you started saying dad maybe you shouldn't direct maybe that's something you need to give over to me yeah i could see that i was failing i was just failing really badly and in front of my son so there's the father-son thing going on there's the uh working together professionally thing going on i'm essentially looking entirely like a fool um i'm sorry oh do you not want to talk about this no i do damn it's okay it's okay I can talk about it. I can talk about it. It's just, wow, that welled up. You need to hit rock bottom sometimes, you know? It needs to go to shit before you can rebuild something. And I think if you're awake enough and interested enough, like I was fortunately to go, okay, what happened? And to have the support of my therapist, which is huge. And he kept saying, this was good for you. You know, these ideas you had of being a director, of being special. I no longer think I'm special. And I can feel that part of me. You know, it's still in me, right? Some kind of ego part wants to be special, but I know I'm not. And that's okay. That's okay. It's okay to fail. Fail. I mean, what is failure? But to just... To fall apart. To fall apart entirely and go, okay, who am I really? Okay, I'm somebody who cares about my relationships, cares about... personal growth and eventually cares to tell stories in my own unique way. You know, how can I be who I really am and then come through whatever work I do? My dad is showing me that it is possible to have a more three-dimensional definition of what it means to be a man. In many ways seeing him break down and seeing him show this other side of himself, this really emotional side, it was the key to reconnecting. It was The only way I think that we were able to grow past what happened as you can tell Therapy has played no small part in this whole dynamic with my dad I really think that if both of us weren't working on ourselves None of this would be possible these kinds of conversations wouldn't be possible and before I go any further I want to talk about the sponsor of this video Which is better help better help is the largest therapy service in the world and it's entirely online. I think Even knowing how to express yourself, especially on personal topics, is difficult for everyone, but especially for guys. And even knowing where to begin is challenging. And I think therapy is a great place to start. But then there's the challenge of finding a good therapist that you feel comfortable with, which is difficult in and of itself. But BetterHelp's really good about this because it gives you access to a very large network of licensed therapists. And it's also very easy to switch at no additional charge if you don't feel like you're connecting with your therapist. You can message your therapist at any time. and schedule live sessions when it's convenient to you. I really feel like anything that helps you introspect and learn more about yourself is an incredible investment. It's not the sort of thing that you do just for like three weeks. At least that's not how I see therapy. I've been doing it every single week for the last four years with no intention of stopping. I've just learned so much. I keep learning about myself. If you are interested in checking them out, you can get 10% off on your first month if you sign up at betterhelp.com slash NathanielDrew. And I'll leave a link in the description as well. Thank you, BetterHelp, for sponsoring this video. It is with your support that I'm able to bring these videos to life as well as my podcast. Now, there's a little bit more of the conversation with my dad that I want to share with you because there is a happy ending to this story. In a sense, we lost each other. I think you probably felt you lost me. And I actually felt like I lost you. These are intense words. It did feel like losing my dad, right? Because superhero guy, you know, that I looked up to growing up, I'm seeing him just fall apart before my eyes and it was just so difficult. Here I am, just like I can't handle hanging around you because I'm angry at you because my idea of you is falling apart. I want you to be this guy I look up to. And at that time, it couldn't be that. I struggled a lot with this idea that I was losing my dad. But what was happening was really a gift. because what was falling apart in front of me wasn't my dad. It was an idea I had about men, a standard of manhood that I have tortured myself chasing down, where you always have to prove your strength and masculinity. I wanted my dad to be superhuman because I was scared of the alternative, which is that all men are three-dimensional creatures and we all have our personal shit to work out. I didn't lose my dad. I lost a completely unfounded, completely impossible idea of what it means to be a man. A definition of masculinity that erases all vulnerabilities and character flaws. Forever having to prove how strong you are is not strong, it's fragile. No one is outwardly strong all the time. Real strength is what you do when you've been knocked down. The vulnerability to look within and grow. That is something I feel my dad has shown me in these last few years. I could tell you were not gonna just move on and pretend nothing had happened. The work that you did with the therapist. was huge that was a real declaration of your commitment to growing from this whole thing small changes took place and then big changes took place For me, I think what matters more is the energy behind it, right? But selling the house in the United States and leaving the courage to actually do it and the drive and the energy that I know that took. Those were actions that spoke infinitely louder than any words you could have ever told me. And I'm seeing you guys behave in this way that I do respect. It didn't have to be leaving the country, but what I liked was the courage. What I liked was the commitment to living more intentionally. and learning from all these experiences and my view of you did tremendously shift and what has a natural consequence of that is i enjoy hanging out with you more right again and here we are seeing each other every few weeks and i want to have this podcast conversation with you and all of a sudden i'm showing you in all these videos because it feels natural it doesn't feel forced and i think it's because we both over the last five years did a lot of personal work people don't understand that you have to do that work to have the relationships they're seeing in these videos right yeah they wonder how do i how do i get that what's the secret sauce the secret sauce you gotta look internally if you do the internal stuff it shows up externally in how you attract your children or how you relate to the people around you Again, if you're interested in checking out the full conversation, which came out incredible, I'll leave a link to it in the description. It's available already on Obakaplan. We have a chance to rework definitions, to push back against the harmful non-communication that has been the status quo for so long. I believe the journey of being a man is one that requires courage. A courage to push back against what you think others want you to be, and instead, to simply be what you are. Thank you, Dad, for showing me that there's a lot more. to being a man.

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Check out the full conversation with my Dad on No Backup Plan → https://youtu.be/9no3raeONIY

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