Okay, no introduction, just going to jump right
into it. So, Dochi had a Hot Ones Q &A with Miss
Milan, and they were asking questions back and
forth, and one of the questions asked to Dochi
was what her red flag was for dating, and her
response was straight men. I believe she said
something along the lines of, like, maybe I'm
quoting here, like, I mean, strike one, you're
a man and you're heterosexual, right? So straight
men seems to be a red flag for Dochi. Now, I
want to be clear about something. I personally
don't care what Dochi says in the sense that
her view is her view. And, you know, she has
preferences and she has her own history in dating
and she has her own red flags. And this just
happens to be hers, right? If anything, it just
made me a little bit more curious, like, oh,
what were her experience like? As, you know,
anybody who's having a conversation with somebody
might want to ask if they're actually trying
to get to understand the other person. And to
find out, like, oh, why is this a red flag for
you? What has your experience been that this
is serving as a red flag? But that was just my
response. What did fascinate me, because those
of you who know me know I just don't honestly
care what most other people think. What did fascinate
me, though, was the range of responses that came
flooding in after her interview, right? Some
people responded with, well, this is just nothing.
Who cares? Like I did, right? This is just her
personal preferences. Others, interestingly,
took it as a joke of some kind, although I don't
see where the joke is. In fact, if you watch
the video, she seems to just report it fairly
matter -of -factly. And so, you know, some people
thought because it was a joke. that it was nothing
to get worked over, like get over it. Sounds
kind of dismissive to me, but, you know, that
was some of the responses. Others responded with
a little bit more curiosity and wanted to find
out exactly why she responded in the way that
she did. And some people just didn't know that
she identifies as queer and bisexual. So they,
you know, might have wanted to find out about
her own history. Others actually use that knowledge
that she does identify as bisexual and queer
and use it as a way to make sense of her response,
that her response was just simply to say that
she just wants to be with other queer people
or something along these lines, right? I don't
know how you would know that that's what she
meant because there was nothing in the interview
that actually said it, but okay, neither here
nor there. Seems like a lot of people are responding
and... you know, adding a lot of things into
the interview that wasn't actually at least explicitly
there. So a lot of people seem to be reading
into it. Now, I personally was most interested
in the, I think, a larger portion of the responses,
at least in social media. And this is part of
the reason I hate social media. But, you know,
there's a large number of people who seem to
have taken offense with her statement as some
sort of attack on straight men. So they took
her statement that her red flag is straight men
to respond with, so what's wrong with straight
men? Are you saying that straight men are a problem,
that they're awful people? And many of them started
claiming that Dochi is going to lose a chunk
of her audience, that a lot of people who once
supported her will no longer support her because
they feel personally attacked or insulted being
identifying as a straight male. I'm a straight
man, okay? All right, so I want to talk about
the backlash. I don't care about, you know, Dochi's
actual response. I think there was nothing to
her response. It's more the responses that are
really fascinating. Okay, so I'm looking at the
people who are offended. I mean, I understand
that you are offended. I will acknowledge that,
right? But the question here is why were you
offended, right? Why instead of being curious
about her claims, wanting to know more about
why she felt that way, why is it that you automatically
went to the realm of you're attacking straight
men? This is not a good thing to do. This is
insulting. This is demeaning. It's disrespectful.
Why did you jump into that realm so quickly?
Now, look, I'm not going to play armchair psychologist
here. I'm not going to try to assume that I know
what it is that any of these people are thinking
or feeling. I'm not going to assume anything
about what Dochi meant. I think this is where
a lot of the responses have gone wrong, is that
people start assuming, you know, this is what
Dochi meant when, you know, there's nothing,
I mean, there's no follow -up question here.
There was nothing, you know, added to her discussion
that indicated what she actually believed in
her response or what she meant by her response,
right? I don't know either. So, you know, I'm
not going to try to pretend I do, okay? I just
know what the reactions are, right? So I know
that some people were offended. A lot of people
felt that it was an insult to straight men to
claim that's a red flag. And I can see where
they're coming from because red flags usually
indicate that it's something that is wrong, right?
At least for the person who claims it's a red
flag for them, that it's something that they
are going to be cautious of, that they don't
want to engage with people of that kind, right?
For whatever reason. It might be their own personal
experience. It might just be their general views
of people with those qualities. But red flags
are often seen as a bad thing, right? We don't
say like red flags, like, yay, let's go date
somebody with somebody with all these red flags,
right? So I could understand where it's coming
from to some degree. And, you know, I'm even
going to go one step further. Let's just assume
for the sake of argument that she actually genuinely
believes that straight men are a red flag in
the sense that straight men are a problem, right?
As in, in dating life, For her, she thinks that
with straight men, you need to be kind of cautious
or be a little bit hesitant to date them because
they are straight men, okay? So the question
I have is this. Those of you who are getting
all worked up over Dochi's comments, why are
you offended? Why are you getting so defensive?
And don't start... here by claiming that you're
not defensive, because that just sounds honestly
defensive. The fact that you are offended and
you're getting worked up and you feel a need
to comment on social media, that you are expressing
how you're feeling, you're clearly offended,
you clearly are wanting to defend straight men
or yourself, I'm not sure what, right? But...
I'm asking you this in all honesty because my
guess is you know the reality. You're not going
to be dating Doji, right? You're not even going
to meet her at any point, I'm guessing, right?
And, you know, maybe you're a fan and you feel
like she owes you something to consider, like
straight men to be, I don't know, great or something
in order for you to... support an artist maybe
that's what it is I'm not sure exactly what right
but what's clear is that you have no personal
relationships or connections to Dochi right and
you still seem to have taken some issue with
her comments so I want to just sit for a second
with your reaction and I want to sit with your
reaction for a reason it's because at least from
my experience I think that your reaction might
actually reveal why straight men are a red flag.
Now, I'm not saying that all people who were
offended were straight men. I saw a comment and
people going after Dochi that were not straight
men. It was women. It was people who identify
in all different ways. I'm not going to speak
on all of them. What I do know is that There
is something to the idea that straight men on
the whole, I'm not talking about any particular
individual, but straight men on the whole, maybe
it's because of culturally what is or isn't accepted,
right? I don't know about individual personal
history, like I said, but, you know, at least
generally culturally, right? Straight men often
tend to be a certain way. And I mean, there's
even research that kind of bears this out. Let
me kind of just point to You know, an antidote
or actually just an SNL episode. There was a
whole SNL skit where Bo and Yang and who was
it? I think it was like Travis Kelsey were doing
this whole skit about being friends with a straight
male. Right. So Bo and Yang. talking about how
he loves his girlfriends, but sometimes he needs
a break from all that because it's emotionally
very, you know, you have to invest a lot emotionally
and financially. But with straight men, things
come kind of easy. You don't have to be emotionally
invested. And in the skit, if you go and watch
it, right, you look at the conversations and
the kind of conversations they have, they don't
talk about anything personal. In fact, I think
Travis Kelsey was saying something like, you
know, I'm sorry for talking about my dad dying.
I won't be like that again. right? Apologizing
for expressing feelings, right? And, you know,
it works as a joke in part because there is some
truth to it, right? I'm speaking from my own
experiences. Like, most of the men in my life
tend to be terrible at identifying and expressing
their feelings. I'm probably one of the few men
that I know of like that actually go to therapy
regularly and have reflected on my own feelings
and my often inability to kind of express myself
in an accurate way, right? Or lashing out at
people because I didn't understand how I was
really, what was really behind it. This is actually
a fairly common experience for a lot of men.
And I say that the research bears it out because
one of the major issues with men is that, at
least according to research anyways, is that
there's a disproportionate number of men who
end up being depressed, suffer from loneliness,
and commit suicide. This is an actual real problem
for men. And at the root of a lot of this, in
part anyways, in large part I would say, is that
men have a terrible time. identifying, sitting
with their feelings, acknowledging their feelings,
expressing their feelings, learning how to deal
with their feelings in a healthy way. These are
things that affect men generally, but I think
it actually affects straight men probably more
than anything. Straight male culture is very
different than the gay or queer community and
what is kind of acceptable for men in those spaces
to actually do. So I'm pointing all this out
because, again, individually, you individually,
it might not apply to you, but you're also kind
of living under a rock and not acknowledging
reality if you think that there's not a general
issue with men across the board, and specifically
with straight men. And one of the things that
comes out... from straight men, something about
the culture is that oftentimes they get very
defensive. They get very, how do you say this?
They take it personally when things are not personal,
right? So if somebody makes a comment about men
generally, not the individual, but men generally,
many of them will take it personally as an attack
on them specifically, right? Now, I want to be
clear, right? I think this is a normal human
reaction. I think all humans experience this,
right? Children have to kind of learn at an early
age and constantly kind of practice this to be
able to differentiate between, you know, they're
feeling a certain way and other people being
wrong for making them feel this way, right? I
mean, this is one of the things I learned in
therapy, like therapy 101. One of the things
I learned was... You're responsible for your
own feelings, right? Like you need to learn to
acknowledge and accept your feelings and not
put the responsibility on others for how you
feel, right? You feel how you feel because that's
just how you feel, right? You can't point to
other people and say, you made me feel this way.
But I've learned from my own experience that
it happens, at least for me, more often with
men that they get defensive in this way and take
it as a personal slight on them. Or as my insulting
them specifically, right? Now, sometimes I might
just be guilty of, you know, implying a little
too heavily. And so, like, it makes sense why
they would connect the dots in that way, right?
But at the same time, sometimes it's just true.
And this is why I am so fascinated by the response,
the response I've seen. And the reason I'm surprised
is I... I was hoping that at least, you know,
not that I expected men to, you know, make major
drastic changes in their life to address it in
any way or think of it as a problem. But I was
surprised that a lot of men do not even like
see that, you know, male culture is the way that
it is, right? When men get together and some
of the behaviors that they engage in, that the
fact that they can't understand why others. just
don't like it. They think that they find it to
be a problem, that they find it to be something
that we shouldn't be encouraging people to do.
Let me give you another example. I'm guilty of
a lot of these, so I'm not trying to throw other
people under the bus and say I'm better than
anybody. I have had to learn because I was guilty
of a lot of this. I'll just use an example for
myself. One of the things that I had a hard time
doing especially in married life, but even prior
in previous relationships, is to be able to talk
openly and to address the other person's feeling
in that relationship. And part of the reason
I had difficulty doing so was that I would often
get wrapped up in my own feelings, right? I would,
instead of hearing their concerns or their anger
or frustration with me, instead of actually listening
to what it is that they were trying to communicate
to me about how they felt, I was quick to focus
on my own feelings about their feelings, right?
In other words, I saw their feelings as somehow
a threat to the relationship or as an indication
that they were rejecting me. And so I would get
up all up in my own feelings, right? And, you
know, now, you know, after years of kind of working
on this, I look back on it and say, wow, like
there are so many chances where I could have
really connected with the other person by listening
and empathizing with their. feelings, but instead
I just completely cut them off, right? I put
a barrier between us in our relationship because
I was not able to actually hear their heart.
I wasn't able to hear how they were feeling.
And instead I was so focused on my own feelings
that I just basically ignored everything that
they were saying, or I would end up twisting
what they were saying into something about me,
right? And how I felt. And, you know, I didn't
realize just how much kind of pain and hurt I
was causing the other person in that relationship.
But upon reflection now, I could actually see
like, oh yeah, that makes so much sense why,
you know, the person that I was in a relationship
with felt so alone and didn't feel like I actually
saw them or noticed them or, you know, understood
them, right? I could understand exactly why they
felt that way. And it had everything to do with
the way that I responded to them, right? Had
everything to do with my response. OK, but here's
the thing, like the way that I was responding,
that's how most guys I meet, that's how they
respond. Right. I've tried with men to be able
to have deeper conversations and talk about feelings.
Right. I have a chat group with college buddies,
all dudes. Right. Um, where I tried to do this
exercise, I found a wonderful set of, uh, cars
that are being sold. I think it was like a startup
somewhere of, uh, of people doing it out of their
home, but a little card game where, you know,
friends are, it's called friends are human, uh,
too. And it asks questions that are at a various
level, like questions about the relationship
you have with the other person. And I suggested,
you know, cause we're not like physically next
to each other. We can't meet up. you know, as
frequently as we would like, that I would put
these things, these questions out there for us
to answer so that we could really get to know
each other. And I see the responses and I'm like,
these are not very deep responses. These are
kind of like very surface level responses. There's
a lack of depth in the responses. And it didn't
surprise me, right? And I think this is what's
shocking. I feel like it's okay to be like, well,
yeah, that's how guys are. And, you know, acknowledge
like, yeah, this is something that other people
might not necessarily like. To acknowledge it
would be great. But what's fascinating is that
I think a lot of people just don't even realize
that this is something that is detrimental to
building relationships, right? Like you can't
have deeper, meaningful relationships unless
you're able to go into that space. Where you
understand and learn about the other person and
their inner workings and their history and their
lives and how that impacted who they are now,
right? Until you actually go into that space
and are willing to have those deeper, more vulnerable
conversations, you're just not going to have
a deep connection with that person. You could
have a great working relationship. You could
have a lot of fun together, right? It's an easy
relationship. I mean, this is what the SNL skin
is talking about, right? The relationship becomes
easier. You're friends, but you're not really,
you know, friends in any deep sense. You're friends
in the sense that they're always down to hang
out. You always have a good time. But then any
sort of emotional baggage, you don't go to them
to talk about it. Because one of the reasons
is you're not going to feel heard. You're not
going to feel understood. They could distract
you from whatever you're dealing with. but they're
not going to help you work through it, right?
But the fact that people don't see this as a
predominantly, again, not exclusively, but a
predominantly straight male problem, that's what's
fascinating here about the responses. In other
words, like the fact that people are getting
so defensive is the very thing that I at least
would consider a red flag in a relationship.
Right? That's what I would consider a red flag
in a relationship. If somebody gets defensive
about something I say about my own preferences,
instead of responding with curiosity, you respond
with getting defensive about it as if it's an
attack on you specifically, is for me a red flag.
That itself is the red flag. So I was reading
all these responses and I found it to be so...
funny in some ways because there's this kind
of like this lack of awareness about the very
thing that you're doing that could at least potentially,
like I said, I don't know what Dochi meant by
straight men being a red flag. What I can tell
you myself is that there's a lot of things that
specifically mostly straight men do that I consider
to be a red flag, right? If my daughter was dating
one of these men, Right. I only have one kid
and I have a daughter. Right. So, you know, she
was going around dating and, you know, it doesn't
even matter if it was a man, if it was any person
who demonstrated this sort of response in response
to her expressing her feelings or her preferences.
Right. Or something that should have been an
opening to a deeper, meaningful discussion about
personal life experiences. Right. If somebody
responded with this sort of defensiveness, for
me as a parent, I would see that as a red flag.
I would see that as a red flag. And I'm not going
to lie to myself and then say that this is something
that affects everybody, all humans in the same
way. It clearly doesn't. It clearly doesn't.
It clearly seems to be an issue that exists mostly
with men. Mostly with men. And it's backed up
by all the data that we see. It is a serious
problem, at least in the United States. But I'm
imagining, I wouldn't be surprised if this also
existed in a lot of other countries where there
was a long history of, you know, what is it,
of men being touted as, like, leaders or people
who had to be strong and people who had to, like,
not really show their emotions and have a lot
of grit, right? Like, it wouldn't surprise me
if this is a problem in those areas as well,
which is, you know, at least from my experience,
again, And at least backed up with some data,
men have a really hard time connecting with other
men, other people generally, in any deeper way
because there's something about the culture that
it gets ingrained in them that they never learn
how to be deeper emotionally in relationships.
They don't know how to build these deeper connections
with other people. And as a result, you're seeing
the kind of consequences of it. A lot of lonely
men. who don't have any deep friendships, who
don't turn to other people, friends, in order
to talk out whatever they're going through, that
if they don't have a therapist, then they really
don't have any other people to rely on to talk
about their feelings. They don't even know how
to identify their feelings, right? They can't
even tell that they're being triggered or that
they are reacting to things in ways that have
nothing to do with the thing that they're facing
in the first place, like in the Xochitl case,
right? It's a person you don't know that is just
speaking her mind. Why are you getting so worked
up? Maybe that's the first place to start. Maybe
that's the first place to start. But I don't
know. I don't know if maybe I'm just seeing things.
I don't know if other people are noticing what
it is that I'm noticing. But I find that, and
this is just generally on social media, this
is what I find is the responses seem to be a
lot more telling. than the initial thing that
let off all these reactions. And in this case,
that holds very true for me. In any case, I'd
like to know what you think. If you find me on
YouTube, please leave comments. I'm curious about
other people's thoughts. I've been wanting to
have conversations about this because I just
find it to be a fascinating social phenomenon.
And I'm curious to hear what your experiences
have been. And, you know, if you disagree with
me, that's fine. You know, I'd like to have a
conversation because I want to hear what it is
that maybe I'm missing here because I find this
whole thing to be hilarious, but hilarious in
a very sad way. And maybe I'm on the wrong track.
So if you can show me otherwise, please, I'd
like to hear from you. All right. Until next
time.