I was talking to someone recently who, like many women, made the mistake of finding men attractive and wanting to fall in love with them. I mean, she didn't want to fall in love with them—she was actually kinda hoping that she'd never feel the urge to fall in love again. Because—get this—every time she tried to fall in love, it was with a man! Crazy, right?!

She described an unpleasant experience that I've heard a lot of women describe. It was the sense that, as she spent any time with any man in any situation whatsoever, she could see his eyes defocus; she could feel the way that, increasingly, he didn't seem to notice she was there. He'd laugh away her insecurities and upsets; he'd absentmindedly ignore her excitements and curiosities. Whatever he'd gotten from her—sex, arm candy, free household labor—he'd already gotten. Or maybe, even though the sex had dwindled down to nothing, even though they barely really spoke, even though the adventures increasingly didn't seem to matter, he was still getting what he wanted out of her, though that raised some disturbing questions about what he'd wanted in the first place.

In the end, my friend concluded, she was valued by this man for all of two reasons:

Which is an upsetting thing to realize about your own value, especially when it's not remotely accurate.

Why couldn't he see her? Why did he seem to see her at first, then abruptly stop? What was it about this man, about these men, about so many goddamn men? What is it about men?

My running theory is: it's because most men never really learn to see other people at all.

"Not true!" most men protest. "I see people! I'm actually very perceptive! And I'm super smart, and I'm great at analyzing things, and I—"

Hold up, fellas.

When I say that men don't know how to see other people, I'm referring to a very specific kind of seeing. I'm not talking about perceiving other people. I'm not even talking about empathy. I'm talking about something deeper: the understanding, the visceral recognition, that other people exist. That other people exist as people.

In other words: that other people's experiences of the world, run just as deep, are just as complicated and multilayered, are just as difficult and strange, as yours are. And that those people's experiences are different from yours, in ways that, by your nature, you literally cannot fathom. Not even if you ask them about it. Not unless you are very patient, and dedicate a lot of time, to putting yourself aside and trying to fill your senses, your mind, your heart, with even the vaguest idea of what it's like to live in the world as them.

Many men do not fundamentally know how to do this. Many men do not fundamentally know that this is a thing that they can do. They do not understand that, if other people seem shallow to them, it's because they have not made the efforts to form a deeper understanding of those people. Many men will literally refer to other people as "NPCs," or even mow them down as if they're blowing off some steam in Grand Theft Auto, because they have not figured out that other people exist.

Moreover, men are often afraid to do this. They are afraid of the possibility of doing this. And they are afraid because, on some level, they are afraid that they don't exist—and they still haven't figured out what the fuck to do about it.

Women, by contrast, are often reared to do some form of this. Even if they haven't been raised in a social or religious tradition that teaches them that their only purpose in life is paying dutiful attention to "their man," women are taught to be silent and make room for other people. Women are taught that their voices, their opinions, their choices are inconvenient and rude. Women are raised with a definition of "polite behavior" that is outright stifling. Because the moment that anybody else wants to speak, the moment that anybody else has an opinion, the moment that anybody else wants to take up space, women are trained to stand down.

So women often have a very clear sense that other people exist. They are aware to an extent that almost becomes a curse. They are aware that other people exist, and boy will those people make sure they don't forget it.

Men, by contrast, are often centered from a young age. Their anarchic youthful energy is treated as delightful and rambunctious. Even when they're scolded or disciplined, they're scolded because there are rules, not because they themselves are taking up too much room. Young boys often live an existence akin to a non-stop inner monologue, one that many of them just speak aloud constantly, never shutting up or holding back anger or doing anything but running around and screaming and giggling and such.

That part is obviously hyperbolic—different men are raised in different ways!—but this part isn't:

Men are often, at the very least, treated like equals in the room. Their presence matters; they get to have a say. Oftentimes, men take up more space in a room than other people, especially when those other people are women. And oftentimes, when men experience being less-than-equal, it's because there's another, more authoritative man in the room—an adult, when they're young, or a more charismatic peer, or someone who can speak with authority on something that they cannot.

These are not often situations where men are expected to be vulnerable. They're more superficial than that. And when men do express emotion around other men, it's often received inhospitably: when they're not mocked and belittled for it, they're treated like having feelings doesn't matter if they're wrong.

So what if you're crying if I'm the one who's right? Hell, why would you cry except to manipulate me into putting my right aside? The more you cry, the more I'll show you just how little I care.

It's commonly theorized that men grow up seeing other men as competitors. Some psychologists go further and theorize that all men want to kill and cannibalize their fathers, as the ultimate authority figure. These theories often add that, rather than compete with their fathers, sons want to be seen—and that, I think, hints at what's really going on here.

Because it's not just that men aren't taught to see other people. It's that men aren't taught what it's like to be seen—especially not by other men. In fact, the terrifying implication is that anybody else who wants to be seen, anybody else who wants to take up space, would rather obliterate them than pay attention to them. Deeper still, the implication is that, if you're not seen, you don't deserve to be seen. You don't deserve to exist.

Ah, but those psychologists also point out that there is one person who sees men when they're young—and it's their mother. The mother's role, these theorists say, is to see her son. It's to give her son an experience of being seen.

Let's pretend like that's true. Let's pretend that that's somehow enough—that it cuts against the terrors of the unseeing, uncaring rest of the world. Is the theory really that a healthy way to raise your son is to teach him that women exist to notice him?

But that's seemingly what happens. Men seemingly grow up thinking that the reason to have a woman in their life is to be seen and validated. That's even how some men define love. They love their girlfriends, they love their wives, because these women let them be vulnerable. These women let them be themselves. These women tell them: you are seen, you are here, you are enough.

Plenty of these men don't stop and wonder whether this is a human desire, rather than a male one. They don't stop and ask themselves whether women might want to be seen too. They don't ask whether women might have spent years learning how to see other people, a kind of involuntary training that those men never received or realized existed. And they certainly don't ask whether women might struggle with being seen even more than men do, because men have never experienced a harder struggle than their own.

These men hear things like "most men are afraid of being vulnerable" and heatedly shoot back: That's not true! I'm vulnerable all the time! I even cry around my girlfriend! I sob in my wife's arms!

And sure: that's a kind of vulnerability. It's an important kind.

But on some level, it's still not vulnerability at all. Not when you expect women to make room for you. Not when you anticipate them shrinking down as far as you need, to give you as much space as you like, to give you every kind of validation you're going to crave.

I know women who, in the middle of a furious fight where they have every right to be upset, will nonetheless quiet down and start listening and empathizing if the man they're fighting with starts to weep. No matter how much they want to say, no matter how much they feel, they will prioritize their partner's emotions and tenderness over themselves. It's such a common tendency, in fact, that it's a known fact that abusive men use tears to manipulate women. At some point, they learn that their partners' needs to validate them can be weaponized and used against them.

That's a whole other subject, though. The reason I'm bringing it up is this: vulnerability isn't just about having feelings. It's just not about crying. It's not just about daring to let yourself be seen. It's not just about admitting that you want someone to notice you.

No: true vulnerability begins when you do all that, when you open yourself up, when you let yourself be unguarded, and you're still not the only person in the room. It's doing all that, being all that, admitting that this is who you are, and hearing the person next to you quietly say: "I'm still here, you know."

Because that's the hard part of being vulnerable—and that's the reason why vulnerability is so important. Vulnerability isn't just a matter of feeling seen and validated. It's a matter of feeling seen and validated while you acknowledge other people's rights to exist. And by "acknowledge," I mean recognizing that they exist as fully-fleshed-out people with deep experiences, different lives, and every right to be in this world alongside you. True vulnerability consists of letting yourself realize that while still daring to exist, daring to ask that somebody see you, daring to ask that somebody let you matter. And that word, let, is the scariest part of all. Because you're not wholly vulnerable until you put aside your right to choose, your right to make that choice, and acknowledge that other people, in the end, get to decide what you do and don't mean to them.

If you've lived your entire life convinced that everybody else in the world wants to blot you out, then it is existentially terrifying to realize how rich and full and complicated and deep everybody else in the world is. Reducing other people to shallow, flat insignificances is almost a kind of coping mechanism. There are, after all, so many other people. So many more others than there are of you! It feels like you almost have to shrink them all down—and even then, it feels unbearably threatening when one of them swells even a little bit in size. If you ever let yourself see those other people as equal in size and importance to you...

Well, suddenly you'd feel incomprehensibly small. It would be hard to feel like you even meaningfully exist.

It's hard enough to admit your feelings and needs to someone who's trying to devote her entire life to seeing you and caring about you. Now imagine that other person is a person. Imagine she's you-sized. Imagine only taking up 50% of a room, of a relationship, of a life. If you dare imagine even one other person is fully person-sized too, then you're suddenly a minority. If you imagine everybody else being like that, you practically wink out of existence.

That's vulnerability at its starkest. It's the terrifying realization that many men are never forced to directly acknowledge. And of the ones who do, plenty go full-blown nihilist over it, because they can't imagine the world as anything but a battlefield that'll only have one victor. To their minds, caring is weakness—and anyone who loves them has done them the favor of making themselves insignificant. You do them a kindness if you give them permission to never think about you again: they're grateful to you for that, and for nothing else at all.

But they've got it all wrong. In a world like that, in a world where you are so small that no amount of power, no amount of vanity, will ever make you amount to more than a gnat on the universe's radar, you wind up only having one true power of your own—and that's the fact that you can see others, you can take them in, you can give them room to share this world with you. Your only power, really, is to empower others, which you do every time you acknowledge that there's more to them than meets the eye, more to them than you understand. Your power is to tell people that the parts of them you don't see are worth a damn too—and to ask them to show you those parts of themselves as well.

If you really do reduce people down to nothing, if you do your very best to make them insignificant, then a day will come when you cry, you weep, you throw yourself at their feet, you admit what a miserable and wretched tiny little thing you are compared to them... and they look at you with no feeling at all, not even a glimmer of pity, and they turn and walk away. People, even people who make every effort to give you room in their lives, have limits. And if you abuse those people, if you exploit them, if you take advantage of their love for you, then you will realize that you are just as powerless as you always feared. Because your only power came from the fact that they wanted to let you be powerful. And when they revoke that from you, you truly have nothing.

On the contrast, if you genuinely care about other people—not superficially, but deeply; not as a "favor" to them, but because it matters to you that they exist—then those people will have every reason in the world to keep you in their lives. Granted, you will have to let them decide the capacity they keep you in: caring about them is not a cheat code that "lets" you have them, it's an act that helps them be honest about how much of themselves they'd like to share with you. That part, too, can be hard, especially if you've spent your whole life thinking of other people as trophies to be won, rewards you have to earn, objects whose presence in your life is a reflection of your own achievement and prowess and value. And you can't really care about someone until you realize how bullshit all that is, and start to see instead that how much they want you is a reflection of them and not of you. Just as your desire for them is, on some level, about you and not them.

This is true vulnerability—not just the crying, but the part that comes before the crying. Not the part where you realize how much somebody means to you, but the part where you let them be human whether or not they mean anything to you at all. Not just the part where you feel human, but the part where they do.

Generalizations only go so far. Plenty of wonderful men do know this—and quite a few women don't. Different cultures rear men and women in different ways; perhaps you weren't raised like this in the slightest, and find this entire way of thinking completely foreign to you. And there are all sorts of complications where gender is concerned, and where sexuality comes into play, so if you're not straight or cisgender your experience is likely radically different from this—though you might find the eerie reflections of the world I'm describing haunting your own.

But "not all men" doesn't change the fact that so many men work this way that, for many women, this experience seems universal. It's not just universal in the sense that many women have experienced this with men: it's universal in that, for many women, every man has been like this. Or every man but one, or two. It's so universal that women can count the exceptions on one hand, and remember each one distinctly, because, for many women, those are the men who haunt them, like mirages from their past, so unusual that the specifics of their story are hard to understand, hard to believe were ever really there at all.

I have empathy for men who find themselves in this place. But my sympathy only goes so far. It is a hellish existence, to genuinely fear that the presence of other people might obliterate you. Hellish to think that you can only exist by reducing other people's existences down to nothing. At some point, though, it is your duty to recognize the ways that you are hurting or neglecting or abusing other people. And if you struggle to fully comprehend what that means, if it's still hard for you to hear "other people" without imagining a dim buzzing sound and picturing a swarm of irritating little bees, then try and recognize the ways in which you're neglecting and abusing yourself, with your refusal to see other people as people. With your blindness to what other people really mean to you. With your inability to accept that you need people more deeply than you know.

The scariest moment, when you choose to be vulnerable, is when you take your first step. It will be a small step, a clumsy one, an altogether-insignificant-feeling one, and you'll likely hate yourself for all that too. You'll hate yourself for how little it is. You'll hate yourself for how hard it is, for how scared you are, for how little it accomplishes. But you'll take it—and the next step will be a little easier, a little less scary, a little more sure. You'll take it, and soon you'll start to see that the place you're moving away from is far more terrifying than the place you're moving towards. You'll see that you were living in the place you feared all along, convinced that everywhere else was scarier, not realizing that the reason everything around you seemed so dark was that you'd fallen into this pit long before you were old enough to realize what it was.

I'm writing this for women who might better want to understand why so many men are so terrible at giving them even a sliver of acknowledgment. But I'm writing this to men, too. Men, we would love to love you—and by we I don't just mean women. I mean myself, and I mean other men, because it is long past time that we stopped subjecting one another to lovelessness, and long past time that we put the burden of loving men on women alone. We deserve to love and care about one another; we deserve to see one another as worthy of being cared about and loved; we deserve to be loved and cared for. If I'm critical of how so many men behave, it's to help them see that this behavior is keeping them from having what they most yearn for. To help you see, maybe, if you're the one who's reading this. I say the rest of this, not to scold or dismiss or belittle, but to see.

And to women reading this who see men they know: I hope this helps you see men better, but at the same time, I hope you see in this that it's up to the men in your life to do better. They might be able to fix themselves, but you will not be able to fix them. And if you're being treated this dismissively, this reductively, then the best thing that you can do, in many cases, is to pull away, to offer less, to stop giving them such one-sided love that you unintentionally reinforce their belief that they're the only meaningful person in the world. You may think you're helping them be vulnerable, especially if they've told you that themselves, but there's a chance that you might be preventing them from having to be vulnerable at all—because you're denying them the responsibility of having to see you as a person first and foremost.