Maturity, women, and half-baked goods.
Nearly five years ago now, I met a friend of a friend, on a completely chance encounter: both of us were visiting from out of town. She had a theory that has somehow lived in my head silently until now, only crystallizing into a coherent thought and then emerging from that chrysalis into a jumble of ideas that I will now attempt to unpack. She presented the idea that heterosexual men were only “half-baked” until they have had a long-term relationship, or unless a female family member significantly impacted their upbringing. The terms she used to communicate this theory were as above: gentle, metaphorical, and indirect; perhaps the idea had been poorly received by men in the past.
We had a semi-protracted discussion about the idea. My male friends who were present and I all considered ourselves to be well-adjusted young men, in touch with their emotions and capable of maintaining strong friendships, so there was some discord, but being well-adjusted young men, we knew when to drop arguments with people we didn’t know too well. After we said our goodbyes, I never thought about this idea until now.
I’m not sure exactly what brought up the memory. I was certainly reflecting on what I’ve learned in my relationships. Then I started thinking about some of my hetero male friends’ relationships where the concessions that their partners make for them are glaring; not only in trivial matters of vacation or dinner, but the patience that they exhibit in the face of immaturity on the part of my friends. I wondered if that’s how my friends perceived me when I did something ridiculous in my relationship, or worse, if that’s how my partners perceived me. After a brief message exchange with the friend of the progenitor of the “half-baked” theory, I have more thoughts of my own. Though I’m not sure how novel they are, I thought I’d share them anyways. Just in case.
Maturity means many things to many people in many contexts. With regards to younger people, the usual implication is how they behave, relative to their age, or how their body has gone through puberty, the latter of which is not of interest to this essay. I haven’t given the mental sort of maturity much thought in my life. I’ve always equated it with other markers of age such as responsibility and monotony. I’ve written as much: to settle down is mature, to run away to another country is immature. But recently, it’s dawned on me that just as physical maturity is clearly one sort of maturity, its counterpart isn’t “mental maturity”, it’s emotional maturity. And then it all clicked together for me, why girls are considered to be more mature, the impact of “boys-will-be-boys” and the loneliness epidemic, and of course, why men are “half-baked” unless a women has really taken the pains to raise them emotionally.
Many things can be categorized under the banner of emotional maturity, but the one I find the most useful presents it as an extension of emotional intelligence, the ability to unpack, cope, and react to emotions. Emotional maturity is to have constructive and positive responses to situations that would unsettle someone who would otherwise be emotionally immature. It is to be able to communicate feelings and desires in a way that would lead to a productive and healthy outcome. It is something that is incredibly hard to do when faced with pressure, fear, and discontent. I can think of a few overreactions that I’ve had in the past few weeks and reminisce with embarrassment.
The argument is then a repetition of the feminist dogma that arrived with the third wave. Men aren’t told how to deal with their emotions, women are trained to regulate more. Men don’t talk to their friends about personal things, and because it’s less acceptable for women to have dramatic outbursts, they need to. Women do more emotional labour in relationships because it’s the way the patriarchy has formed. Regardless of not if you agree with the prescriptive model that feminism advances, the descriptive one is convincing. However, I will caveat that meekness and internalization associated with traditional femininity aren’t emotional intelligence, only the markers of submissive behaviours. Yet to function and flourish, women have learned to manage their own emotions as well as those they deal with. In a world where women raise women and men follow men, be it through family or mentorship, these teachings are exclusively passed down along the matriarchal lines.
So then the old adage that girls mature more quickly than boys has more than a grain of truth. Often, boys don’t end up maturing at all. This is not to say that women are always more mature than men. But on aggregate, and across many areas, it is undeniable. There are many reasons why women prefer older men, this likely not being the least of them. This is also not to say that age matures all men equally. A strong female influence in a man’s life, one who he trusts and is willing to learn from could help this along. But so can many other things. A healthy group of friends, strong familial bonds, and a willingness to introspect and improve.
Despite the battle of the sexes angle that this is taking, I’d like to return to my newfound definition of maturity. That maturity doesn’t relate to a view on politics or life, but an increased capacity to deal with whatever comes. And that is something to strive towards. An even-keeled approach to life, to take it all in stride, roll with the punches as they come, and make sure that no one is hurt along the way. Though I’ve always considered myself amicable and emotionally grounded, my parents have never really thought so. Perhaps it’s because I’ve taken it on them in the past. Perhaps in tender or tired moment, I haven’t been myself not only to my family, but also to my friends and partners. But most of them remain with me, so I must not be too bad.
Understanding this at all, and aspiring to be more emotionally mature is to already be more emotionally mature. I hope this is the case. Still, there remain great strides left for me to further develop to become in charge of my emotions. At first, it might be hard to differentiate this from bottling them up. My internal monologue will definitely be working in overdrive. Have interactions with the women in my life baked me more? Depends on the woman, but yes to some extent at least. I think there have been things I’ve learned through interacting with them, but it never really felt like the ones I spent the most time with were emotionally mature either. Perhaps they were just protecting the matriarchal line of knowledge. Or perhaps I haven’t matured enough myself.
