Do men have a side of the story?

No lube, let’s go. Our tendency to absorb atrocities means we end up as the bad guy in the workplace, relationship, marriage, as a parent or any contentious situation. Societal encouragement to be strong and suffer in silence has us here today. Where nobody hears our side of the story.

There are men who were fired from their places of work simply because they never played corporate politics and elected to be tough and say nothing to management about their predicament. 

Or the fathers who have been branded absent and irresponsible because they picked diplomacy over another fight with the mother of their child in the school car park. 

Just as history is written by the victors, a man’s side of the story is only really heard inside his own mind when he replays the pain of an injustice, infidelity, unfair dismissal, loss of business or job loss. 

Men grow up never hearing their fathers, uncles or brothers express disappointment with anything other than bad football scorelines, a BMW cutting into their lane, warm beer and politicians behaving badly. 

We perpetuate the perception that we cannot tell our side of the story in a toxic work environment or a partner who isn’t doing her part. Men become the bad guys in situations where they were not the only complicit person. 

Work, marriage, business, family, finances.

There comes a time in a man’s life when he decides that telling his side of the story is a futile exercise and his efforts on being heard are not worth the time.

Or the embarrassment of being seen as weak.

When he chooses not to give feedback to his supervisor or CEO. Or when he opts not to comment when a family is planning a funeral. A man who decides not to correct or advise his wife on something he sees as amiss.

This is a man who has signed out, turned off the lights and closed the door behind him. 

That is a man with a story whose side we’ll never hear. He chooses to keep the details to himself because society has told him it a mark of weakness to complain about the oversights of his superiors, entitlement of his community and the shortcomings of his wife or partner.

At some point in our lives, we will sit in boardrooms, across a woman at a restaurant table, around a fire at a funeral, in front of elders … and accept the verdict on our character. 

Because we are shepherded, from the first time our little willies dangle in the delivery room, to swallow our sorrow and showcase our strength.

And this is why there are many men branded absent fathers, indifferent employees, failed husbands or delinquent sons because their side of the story doesn’t sell tickets at the cinema.