“What’s it like being a man in 2019?”
To coincide with Mental Health Awareness Week, BBC Sport gave five men to sit down and speak about their issues with masculinity, depression, frame photographs, and expectancies.
According to the Office for National Statistics, suicide remains the largest killer in the UK between 15 and 35.
In a three-component series, Team GB sprinter James Ellington, Scottish footballer David Cox, Love Island big-name Josh Denzel, and freestyle footballer Olumide Durojaiye open up about the problems they have faced and the way they have handled them.
James broke his leg in a motorcycle coincidence in 2017, forcing him to withdraw from Team GB. David, who performs as a striker for Cowdenbeath, has suffered from intellectual health problems throughout his career.
Olu was released at 18 through Tottenham Hotspur and has played in Scotland and within the English non-league sport – where he performs for Woking; he is now a football freestyler. Josh Denzel starred in series 4 of Love Island, coming third.
The episodes, hosted by Ben Zand, can be launched all through this week, but earlier than you watch, here are five poignant takeaways from the series.
Crying
fifty-five % of men aged 18-24 sense that calling makes them much less masculine (YouGov 2018).
“You do not need to be weaker than the person next to you,” says Olu. “I cover my feelings with laughter, joking around being an idiot.”
When Ben asks, “Would you speak to your dad about how you feel?” all and sundry on the table responds with a robust “no”.
David says: “Approaching your dad with something like that – he’s the individual you want to appear the strongest in front of.”
Josh adds: “I’m positive if I went to my dad with a problem and I become emotional, he could have been best with it. However, I’d have a look at him and be like, ‘No way.”
James says: “Sometimes you may get stuck in a rut where you suppress your emotion for so long that it turns hard to launch. Showing emotion and crying is energy.”
Being the breadwinner
42% of fellows in heterosexual relationships assume they must earn more than their associate (YouGov 2018).
“It makes me sense appropriate with the intention to offer,” says Josh.
“I need to pay for the meals; I need to be the alpha and capable of looking after you.”
Olu says: “I noticed my dad being the primary breadwinner, operating day and night, journeying up and down the use, and I had to be that. I couldn’t be the person that a girl seems at and thinks: ‘He’s a bum.’
“I had to make money by some means because I had to be that ‘man’ function that I notion my companion wanted.”
David adds: “It’s greater how humans perceive you. What are they on the out-of-doors questioning, searching in?”
Social media gratification
How generally do you scroll via Instagram and start evaluating yourself as the man with a six % status on a seashore in Bali and his Lamborghini within the heritage?
But is any of it real?
“I changed into in Monaco some years ago for the opposition and, even though I had an honestly proper time, most of it turned into spent in my room on my own,” says James.
“I put an Instagram publish out, and everybody commented, ‘ woah, you should be having a superb time’.”
Social media can mask what a person is sincerely feeling.
According to the 2017-18 network lifestyles survey, guys (27%) are more likely than ladies (20%) to say they by no means feel lonely.
As a social media influencer, Josh admits: “With the notoriety, there’s a strain to the type of stay that lifestyle. I’m guilty of it massively. You grow to be doing things in simple terms for gratification.
“I recognize for a truth that if the sun’s over there with the beach over here and my abs are searching sick, I realize while the likes start rolling in from positive people and you hit a positive range – that gives me gratification.
“That became earlier than I had a huge following. You get on your emotions about it; the greater your fans, the more people that decide and the more people that comment.”
