Watch any World Cup match and you'll see it: grown men sobbing in the arms of other male fans, screaming into the sky, falling to their knees, wrapping each other in bear hugs that last a full minute too long. Joy, grief, relief on full display, in front of a global audience of billions.
Nobody tells these men to "calm down." Nobody says "man up and quit crying." Other men around them don't pull away. They lean in, hold on, cry too.
Let's retire the idea that men don't feel things as deeply as women do, or that they're somehow wired for stoicism. FIFA proves otherwise, every four years, on the biggest stage in the world.
What men actually lack isn't emotion. It's permission. Specifically, permission from other men to express that emotion anywhere outside of competition. On the pitch, big feelings are heroic. At the dinner table, in the bedroom, in a hard conversation with a partner? Suddenly the same nervous system that could sob openly in front of 80,000 strangers goes quiet.
This is not a personal flaw, but a nervous system that has been entrenched in patriarchy since the moment they breathed air.
If we want men who can be emotionally present with their partners, their kids, and themselves it starts with other men modeling that it's safe to go there. Not just when there's a trophy on the line, but in a normalized, every day kind of way.
And the more we normalize emotional presence, the more we normalize and can practice emotional regulation...and the more men won't use sex just to emotionally regulate.
See where I'm going here?
So let it start with FIFA but let it never ever end.
Fellas, the emotions are for you too. So come on over. We've been waiting for you.
