Men Have a Hard Time Opening Up Emotionally, Until You Do This!

So this morning I asked Siri, the Apple assistant, one of the many life or death questions I ask her every morning, and this time she said, I'm sorry, I'm having trouble with the connection. Please try again in a moment. I felt so alone. And for the first time, I think I somewhat understood how some women must feel when they ask their boyfriend or their husband to be more emotionally available, to open up, to talk about something related to feelings or emotions, or even just whenever they want to have a simple connection with him. And for some women, it's probably much worse because some guys go, I'm sorry, I'm having trouble with the connection. Please never try again. Now, most guys, even many of the good ones, are indeed not very in touch with their emotions, especially not in a romantic relationship. But there are ways to have an emotional connection with a man. So let's see how that's done in this how-to video. I'm an author. I write about dating and relationships for women and about other topics like handling difficult emotions. My real name is Geert. My much easier to pronounce pen name is Brian Knox. Now first, let's bust the myth that men have no emotions at all. All sane men obviously have emotions, but a lot of them cannot deal with their emotions very well. So that's why they stonewall. That's why they shut down. That's why they may give you the blue screen of emotional death. That's why they may seem to run away from their emotions. I don't remember if it was John Gottman, the psychologist who did a lot of research related to relationships, or if it was someone else, but there was a very interesting experiment, a scientific experiment, where a man and a woman that had a real-life relationship in real life were having a conversation that got really emotional on purpose for the sake of science. So that means that, yes, humans were emotionally harmed during that experiment because that was the goal. And that woman and that man were both hooked up to all kinds of monitors, heart rate, sweat, temperature, and so on. Now the woman got really emotional. She raised her voice. She got a red face. She was angry. The guy, not so much. Cool as a cucumber. Almost didn't say a word. And sometimes it seemed like he was thinking, so who's that alien on the other side of the table that's not making any sense at all? Sometimes it seemed like he was not thinking at all. Blue screen of emotional death. But the data showed something totally different. His heart rate was up. His sweat glands were very productive. He was freaking out on the inside. He was super nervous, super stressed on the inside, but you couldn't see it very well on the outside. Then when the emotional argument was over, the woman quickly returned back to her normal state. So normal heart rate and so on. The guy, not so much. He was stressed for much longer. He remained nervous for way longer, but he didn't talk about it. Of course he didn't. So rule number one, try to remember that men have a lower tolerance on an emotional level before they black out, before they shut down, before they walk away from the emotions. Second, you will probably have to teach him how to have that emotional connection with you. And I'll use empathy as an example. One of the best ways to create a deep emotional connection with your boyfriend or with your husband is to first teach him empathy, real empathy. See, as a guy, as a man, I always thought that I had a lot of empathy. A long time ago, I was at a McDonald's in Cannes, France, during the festival. And as I sat outside with some of my friends to have lunch, a father and his about five-year-old boy sat down at the table right next to us with their burgers and their fries. Now the father immediately gets up and leaves the table to get some napkins or something, and he leaves his boy behind. What could possibly go wrong? Well, within seconds, that table is viciously attacked by a bunch of hungry pigeons trying to get their food, their burgers and their fries, in a frenzy. Now, the kid didn't know what to do. I, sadly, was just staring at it. And because nobody did anything, those pigeons called their friends and more and more pigeons dove in. Now, seconds later, the father returns. He scares away all of those pigeons, which was not easy, but the scene was horrible. Burgers had been opened and were torn apart. Fries were missing in action, never to be found again. Ketchup everywhere. It looked like a battlefield on that table, but they still ate their food. They didn't replace what was left of those burgers, even though pigeons had stuck their beaks in there, and I didn't get it. Maybe they did not have enough money to replace the burgers. I don't know why, but I felt so bad about that, about me not having done anything when the pigeons had started their attack. I honestly still feel bad about this. And the old me thought that this was empathy, but it wasn't. It was just me feeling bad for someone, but that didn't really help them, now did it? So many, many years ago, my girlfriend had to teach me what empathy really was. She taught me in many ways how to have that deep emotional connection with her because I had no clue. And I think that's my point. Unless perhaps when they were raised by a very feminine and a very caring mother who taught them all of these things, a lot of men have no idea how to build a deep, emotional, strong connection with anyone. A lot of men don't have emotional talks with their male friends, for example. So instead of asking each other, so how are you today? No, so emotionally, how are you? And how are you feeling? No, but really, share everything. Share your feelings. I'm here for you. No, we ask each other things like, so how's the car, man? Happy with the engine? And how about those new exhausts you installed? What do they sound like? Happy with those? And those investments you made as a return? Making a lot of money? Cool, yeah. Wanna grab a beer later? Yeah. That's about as deep as it gets. And I am stereotyping, but still, I got an email a while back from a 40-year-old great woman whose boyfriend in his early 30s had just broken up with her because he believed that she was too needy. Yet all she wanted was a deep, emotional connection. Now this guy, prior to moving into her place, had lived with his parents his entire life. He was in his 30s. Mommy still cooked all of his food. Daddy still paid all of his bills. True story. Now, when a mother seagull pushes her young out of the nest one day, and she says, good morning, time to wake up, time to grow up, have a nice life, bye-bye, push, and they all fall down, by the time the young are about to hit the ground, most of them will instinctively have opened their wings and they automatically know how to fly. Men are not like that, at least not emotionally. They will probably hit the pavement. Being emotionally available is not a standard feature on a masculine guy, so try to teach him what you want from him on an emotional level. Both parties in a relationship will have to learn. They will have to grow to make that relationship work, especially because masculine and feminine energy are totally different. However, I think that his emotional tolerance level, so his threshold, is very important as well. When you go above it, blue screen of emotional death. He will stonewall you, he will shut down, he will seem to run away from his emotions. So in my opinion, the threshold cannot be changed. It's what it is for every single guy. Some men have a high tolerance, others do not. So indeed, a guy in his early 30s still living at home while mommy and daddy take care of everything for him, food, they pay all of his bills, and so on, that's probably not a great sign of emotional maturity. He may have a very low tolerance. He will probably run back to the nest when the going gets tough, which is exactly what this guy did when he broke up with that woman. So if a deep emotional connection is a deal breaker, if it's really important to you, then try to pick a guy with a high emotional tolerance level. Then use humor. I don't know if you've noticed this, but when men bond together, they often use humor and banter. That creates a deep bond. It can create a friendship. So you try to teach him your language, like for example, real empathy, the fact that sometimes you just want him to listen, not come up with a solution, but you try to use his language from time to time as well to build that connection. And that could be humor and banter. Not for every guy, because there are very serious men out there that hate humor and smiling, but if you see him do this with his own friends, then go for it. It will help him to open up. It will help him to feel safe. Another great way to create an emotional bond is to do something together that energizes him outside of the bedroom. Again, when do men bond? They throw a ball at each other, or they throw a ball at something like a hoop. They go fishing. They watch a game or a funny or a scary movie together. They go on a road trip together. So these activities, as you can see, are not about talking and bonding, but about doing. Nevertheless, they will obviously talk a lot. They will bond. Their connection, their friendship will be growing. It's easier for a man to open up then. And I am stereotyping again, but a lot of women will, for example, love to call a girlfriend and then talk for an hour, sometimes more, or they go out to dinner or they have drinks with a girlfriend so they can then talk a lot, right? It's mostly about talking then. However, most guys will not be found sitting at a table in a restaurant talking about their feelings for hours. No, they go hiking. They go skiing. They play pool or darts or golf, or they throw a Frisbee around. They go do something and then they talk. So it's about doing first. Try this and you will be speaking his language. It will be much easier to make him open up and to create that bond. However, like I always say, the effort has to come from both sides. He will have to learn your language as well. He will have to learn and even appreciate the stereotypical differences between men and women because they matter in a romantic relationship. For example, the fact that when you have a problem, you may just wanna talk about it, to be heard, to share your feelings. But when he has or when he sees a problem, he will probably just wanna fix it. That's what men do. So you talk about a problem and he tries to come up with a solution. He thinks that that's what you want. So he will have to do his best as well. But in my experience, as soon as you start to connect, using his language, it will be a lot easier for him to connect to you using yours. If you teach him how that is done, he will probably need some help. Again, being able to create an emotional connection is not a standard feature on a lot of men. And there you go. I hope you found a lot of value in this video. If you would like some more advanced stuff, then you can find that on my website, brianknox.com. My books, they can be found on Amazon and on Audible by typing my pen name, Brian Knox, in the search bar. As always, I will put links in the description underneath this video as well. I wanna thank you for still being here at the very end of this video. I love it when you do that. And I hope to see you in another video.