Stop using "insecure" and "fragile" as euphemisms for bad behavior
I saw this in my Bluesky feed:
First of all you should never date someone as a “fixer-upper” project. Maybe there exceptions out there- somewhere- but to a first approximation it’s always a bad idea. To that degree, I agree with this graphic. No one is a rehabilitation center for anyone in a romantic context. This is not to say that you shouldn’t date people who need help, merely to say you should never date someone because they need help, as a way of giving that help.
But I’m troubled by the phrases “insecure” and “fragile”.
Now there are two types of men, and for that matter, people in general, who get called insecure or fragile:
Kindly but emotionally delicate sorts. They may be liable to cry at the drop of a hat, but there’s no malice in them.
Volatile people, inclined to blow up and get angry, or run away from their responsibilities, or otherwise do something destructive
If the poster is suggesting that the latter type of people are a problem for women in the dating game, I agree, however if it’s suggesting the former are a problem, that’s bad. In fact it’s a half step removed from a 90’s conservative columnist complaining they’re sick of men being so weepy these days. It’s legitimate not to want to date a sad guy, just like it’s fine not to want to date a brunette guy but in general there’s nothing wrong with sad guys from an interpersonal perspective.
The problem with volatile people isn’t that they’re fragile or insecure. Yes, often they are fragile, and their fragility might be related to their volatility, but that the fragility itself is not the problem. The problem is they’re volatile. Yet we often use “insecure” or “fragile” to describe volatile as a kind of euphemism. The problem is this makes it sound like we want men to keep their sadness to themselves, to toughen up.
I’m sure the makers of this post were talking about angry, irresponsible and otherwise destructive men, not the merely sad, but I’m not so sure all of the people commenting on it and sharing it felt the same. It’s critical not to create a double bind, where men are encouraged to express their feelings, and then punished for it. This is not a harmless error, it implicitly takes millions of men who are mentally ill but fine interpersonally and tells them that they have a problem.
I was just thinking about this ambiguity: how when we say someone "doesn't deal well with criticism", it can mean either that they refuse to accept it and lash out with anger, *or* that they internalize it too much and feel horrible about themselves.
I completely agree that the meme--with its total lack of sympathy--is completely inappropriate to use in relation to people who are 'sensitive' in the second, internalizing/self-hating sense. But even this kind of 'sensitivity' can sometimes pose a challenge for their romantic partners (and friends).
To the extent that they aren't abusive jerks and so very much *don't want* their sensitive partners to feel horrible about themselves, it can be very hard for them for to express any kind of criticism or even disagreement. There can be a somewhat similar sense of having to walk on eggshells to avoid deeply wounding someone you love--even if the motivation, unlike with the first kind of sensitivity, is empathy rather than fear.
Ozy Frantz, on her old blog, touched on this when she wrote about her own relationship issues as someone with BPD, who through no fault of her own emotionally interpreted any hint of disapproval from her partner as "I rightfully hate you and think you're a horrible person."
Do you think that people who are more controlling tend to get along less with these types? By controlling I mean in how much they desire predictability and how volatile they themselves can be in the absence of it. The controlling and “insecure” types seem related when thought of like this.