The Difference Between Men and Boys

Calling all boys. It’s time to level up.

This story is dedicated to all of my fellow dudes out there because I know and understand your struggle. We can barely budge an inch these days without absorbing a barrage of criticism from women, mostly, who want to aim their angst, their resentment and their pain at us. Our struggle, as men, is an honorable one even though it’s rarely seen or treated as such as far as society is concerned. The female struggle is seen as a noble and honorable one which I don’t disagree with. The human struggle is noble regardless of sex or gender though it’s far rarer for us to be told this as men or for others to hold our struggle in a positive light.

This is a story about how boys have remained boys and how they have failed to grow into men though it’s not their fault. I don’t write this story to criticize you or knock you down, as so many others do these days. I write this story because I love you as a brother and I believe in you and because I know what it feels like to feel lost and without a masculine identity; I tell this story based on what I’ve learned so far. I see myself as a living lesson on two legs. My journey has been a messy one, I don’t see myself as some kind of paragon of wisdom. I see my life journey and I just want to do my best to collect information on what it means to be human and what it means to be a man and share what I’ve picked up so far.

If you feel lost and if you’re looking for answers on what it means to be a man, this story is dedicated to you. I offer the following as a roadmap, of sorts where I talk a little bit more about the destination a little bit more than the process of getting there.

I’ve learned a lot about what it means to be a man and I will offer this one thing right out of the gates. There are a lot and I mean A LOT of women out there who want to tell you what it means to be a man and they have no idea what they’re talking about. If you want a starting point, it’s this: Tune out at least 95% of what you hear from women about masculinity. After that, you’re probably going to need to unlearn the steady diet of bullshit that you’ve been fed. The more connected I become with my own masculine identity they more I realize that most women who speak on this topic are just egotistical and full of their own bullshit. It’s honestly just a byproduct of being human so take it as such. See them as being lost in their own ego, one of the many pitfalls of being human.

Let’s get to it.

Pseudo men

I frankly don’t know a lot of men. In fact, I find that men are quite rare. Mostly, I just know boys who are in adult-grown bodies and I don’t say this to insult them or to cut them down… it’s just an observation. The biggest issue that men face today is a crisis of masculine identity both individually and collectively. Men don’t know how to be men.

They try to be men but that doesn’t make them men. Physical age certainly doesn’t make a man. Time gets way more credit than it deserves and experience counts for nothing when people aren’t applying it properly. You aren’t a man just because you turn 18 years old. We’ve all known or known men who are well into their 40’s or 50’s even who act like children. Being a man is a psychological thing. You don’t become a man just because you physically matured and grew up, you have to emotionally grow up.

Being a man isn’t a test of physical strength or how easily you can get laid. All of those ideas are childish ideas perpetuated by boys who don’t know how to be men because the whole psychological aspect is completely lost on them which is fine I’m not judging them or condemning them, I’m just making an observation.

We’re overwhelmed, instead, by pseudo-men. Pseudo basically means that something or someone is trying to be something that they should be but are not. They should be men, but they aren’t men and we know this, again, by their childish attitudes and behavior.

There are a few types of pseudo men out there but I consider most of them to be what I will just refer to as the lost boys. I find that most men are good men doing their best to be the best person they can be. Most men aren’t the evil violent monsters that they’ve been told they are. I find that most men are good people doing their best in a broken world while they trudge through condemnation that they don’t deserve.

So what went wrong? What’s keeping boys from growing into men?

Well, for starters we’ve lost the tradition of having rites of passage for boys. A lot of people won’t even know what I’m talking about, that’s how lost this tradition is. And while I think it’s important to explore rites of passage and dive deep into that topic, I know I’m just going to lose a lot of readers so if it interests you then you should pursue it.

Older cultures didn’t even have a word for ‘teenager’ because their boys were doing adult things at young ages and in many instances, were regarded as men. They even acted like men because they were psychologically more like men than most adult men these days. The rite of passage helped them develop the adult masculinity qualities necessary to call them men and we have nothing like that anymore. You might be wondering what those qualities are. I’ll get there soon, stay tuned.

“Boys need a ruler; they need someone to rule them.”

There are a slew of other things that went wrong in the process. I outlined in a different article how we as men were raised by generations of men who had been torn apart by the trauma of war. Many of us were largely raised by women who have been guilty of destructive helicopter parenting. I don’t necessarily blame those women though, they are doing what their maternal instincts tell them to do, they just don’t necessarily know when to turn it off at the appropriate age. There are tons of reasons that create a complex mosaic of problematic issues for us.

This problem of adults just being children in physically mature bodies isn’t reserved for men only, by the way. Women act like children all the time, they just don’t get nearly the amount of shit that we men do about it. But I swear to God I can’t open Reddit without seeing a video of some crazy female diving over a fast food counter so she can physically attack a low-paid worker for getting her order wrong. “I said no cheese!!” The ‘Karen’ phenomenon is easily chalked up to children in adult bodies still acting like children and using their new big strong bodies to try and acquire some kind of respect that they haven’t earned and don’t deserve. Both men and women are doing it but Lord knows the men hear about it endlessly when we barely mention the issue with women.

So what’s the difference between men and boys?

Everything that I’ve listed below is a psychological trait. Nothing that I list here has anything to do with physical maturity so it’s best to get the physical age factor out of your head. Let’s get to it.

Boys need approval from others, men have grown beyond this need

Boys need the approval of others. To some degree or another, they’re people pleasers. They’re stuck in the notion that they need to impress other people or be liked by other people because they rely on others for their self-esteem. They don’t know how to emotionally support themselves or build themselves up so they rely on others to do it for them and in so doing they become people pleasers. They’re day to day esteem levels are hinged on how much approval they’re able to get from others. These are the actions of childish people, part of growing up means that you learn to support yourself.

“Boys often end up doing the wrong thing or harmful things because they choose what they think is easy before what they think is right.”

This is especially true with women. They’ll do almost anything to gain approval from women and when she becomes upset with him and she inevitably does, it’s devastating to him. He thinks that he needs her to support him because he doesn’t know how to support himself and so it’s devastating to him when she becomes upset with him. Many women pick up on this and use it to their advantage.

There are boys out there who are obviously trying to prove something with their false bravado and big trucks. They will probably even tell you that they don’t care what other people think when they, of course, care very much what other people think. When you don’t have anything to prove, most people barely notice that you’re even there and the idea with some of these men is to be noticed.

Men, however, don’t need approval because, again, they’ve learned to support themselves and give themselves that level of self-respect. This is how esteem works and men had traditionally gained it through the process of going through a rite of passage. They’ve developed strength in their ego and they no longer seek that validation from others.

Men have learned to be more authentic and if you don’t like them they’re fine with that, they’re happy to have you move on. They’re not trying to gain approval and they’re not trying to prove anything to anyone. Real-grown men usually fly under the radar. You aren’t aware that they’re there because they aren’t trying to gain approval or prove something.

Boys need a ruler; they need to be ruled. Men rule themselves.

Boys need to be told what to do. They need to be told when to get up, when to eat, when to go to work and what to do with their lives. They’re afraid to make their own decisions and they’re afraid to do anything that others might be displeased with. They need to be told what to think and how to feel. They need to be told what to do with their lives. They don’t take initiative and they don’t grab the bull by the horns. They’re afraid to do the wrong thing so they wait for someone to tell them what to do. They also need permission and they wait for that nod of approval before they allow themselves to do much of anything. They want to be independent and they want to live their own lives and be their own person, they’re just too afraid to lose that precious precious approval from others.

When left to their own devices, they can often become stagnant and paralyzed because someone isn’t telling them what to do. They cannot govern themselves. They buy into political leaders and social hierarchies; they buy into the alpha male nonsense. They see the dudes who are trying to be alpha males and wishing they were one but do almost nothing to try to better themselves without someone opening the door and rolling out the carpet.

I’m reminded of a woman on Reddit who said that she gave her husband permission to get a hot dog at Costco which she doesn’t usually do, according to her, because it tends to ruin his appetite before dinner. Uummm, exsqueeze me? I’m sure some will say that it was probably a joke but I think most of us know better.

Men don’t need authority, they are their own authority. They are their own author or the ones who live according to their own dictates. Men don’t need a master because they seek mastery and to be their own master. They’re disciplined and understand their role in society and so they measure their decisions. They’re both intentional and deliberate about what they do and so they don’t need to be ruled. They don’t need to be told what to think or how to feel like boys do.

“Boys inadvertently bring more trouble and strife to their lives by avoiding problems or trying to make life easy”

Boys need other people to define them. Men define themselves.

Boys rely heavily on other people to give them a sense of self or identity. If other people tell them they are toxic they believe they are toxic. If other people tell them they are a violent monster then they believe they are a violent monster. If someone tells them they are a sex addict then they believe they are a sex addict. They allow other people to define them.

Boys join groups and adopt the identity of that group while adhering to the rules and values of that group again because they need approval and because they have to be told who they are and they need to be told what to think and what to do. If he’s in high school, he will adopt the behavior, attire, values and social rules of the clique that he’s in. If he’s with a group of atheists he will adopt their values, their speech and their behavior. If he decides that he’s a Brony then he’ll adopt the behavior of that group. He doesn’t have any individualism, he’s conforming to a group. Again, the things of children.

A man defines himself apart from others. He won’t allow others to tell him who is he. He decides what his values are and he conducts himself accordingly. He knows that conforming to group values is a shaky and dangerous ground and he refuses to lose his individuality to it. He’s not afraid to be alone or stand alone. A man has one of the most single important and precious things that every person needs whether they know it or not. A personal connection with their own sense of self or identity.

Boys lack purpose, men know their purpose.

Boys aren’t always looking for purpose and meaning, they often don’t think enough for themselves to even notice there’s an issue in this area of theirt lives. When boys seek out purpose and meaning it’s often in things that are empty and hollow and they struggle to learn their lesson. The things they want out of life are the things they’ve been told to want. If something fails to give them purpose or meaning they have a hard time letting it go, they’ll keep trying it to the point of destruction. Boys seek things like money, fame and status and men know those are dead ends.

Men seek real meaning and true meaning. Most of their existential crisis orbits around their struggle to find it. When men find meaningful things they also find their purpose and they seek to live out their purpose and through their purpose. Everything else becomes pretty trivial to him. He’s lived with the emptiness that life brings and so most things have little value to him. He knows the roads that lead to a dead end because he’s walked them.

Boys avoid difficult things, men embrace them.

Boys go through life believing that it should be easy and they seek a life without difficulty. They avoid responsibility and they avoid accountability because those things are hard. They hold onto their delusions that life is supposed to be easy and without problems or issues. They avoid practicing awareness or confronting their issues because those things are hard and they don’t want to do hard things.

Men understand that life is hard. They’ve not only accepted this fact but they understand that there is only one way to build strength and it’s through doing hard things. Boys might question the need for strength or why they even need strength when men know how necessary strength is to navigate the turbulent storms that life brings. Men embrace hardships as a way to grow and build strength while boys inadvertently bring more hardships onto themselves by trying to avoid them.

Boys are losing their inner war, men are winning it.

A boy cannot become a man until he wins his inner war which comes in stages. Boys are losing their inner war, in part, because they are avoiding it, it’s on that precarious list of difficult things. Most boys anever become men because they never take this challenge on to win their inner war. I don’t entirely blame them, it’s hard as hell and it’s terribly lonely these days. They don’t get the mentoring or support they need. Regardless, instead of taking this challenge on, they run from it. It’s painful and so they run from it.

Men have fought their inner war and they’ve won it. They faced the storm and took it on. They faced their challenge and climbed their Everest. They learn to direct some forgiveness, respect and even some love in their own direction and a man who loves himself is extremely loving to others. A man who loves himself is a man who does good in the world.

Boys blame other things and other people. Men take responsibility.

A boy says, “I’m stuck in traffic” while a man says, “I am part of traffic, I’m part of the problem.” A boy says, “My team sucks,” while a man says, “I’m part of this sucky team and it’s partially my fault that the team sucks.” When you’re a boy, you see life as something that is happening to you and when you’re a man you see life and your experience with it as your responsibility. Boys sit around and wish somebody would dive in and save them from a troubled life when a man knows that it’s his job and his job alone to fix himself and fix his life. Boys want to run away from problems and men face them.

Boys become destructive to themselves and others because they don’t understand their responsibility. They run away from their accountability so they become destructive while blaming it on somebody else. Men who take accountability are far more aware of their role and their responsibility and they become more conscious of their words and their choices.

Men are conscious. Boys are not.

What does it mean to be conscious? Well, the definition can be a bit subjective or at the very least, nuanced and abstract. If you ask me, being conscious means to be aware. Men are aware. They actively seek awareness. Awareness of themselves, awareness of others, awareness of the people they love and awareness of how the rules of the game around them are rigged and broken. Men think for themselves, boys don’t. Boys need to be told how to think and what to feel. Boys are eager to join sides and adopt the values of other people in order to belong and feel accepted while men resist these structures. Men value the individual and their uniqueness. They truly value diversity instead of just saying that they do.

Boys foster fantasies and men are conscious or aware of what is happening around them. Boys become upset or even angry when their fantasy is threatened because they fight to preserve that fantasy. They cling to ideas and beliefs about how they think the world should be or how other people should act. He fails to realize that he’s just repeating the same human errors as countless others before him. Men are finely acquainted with what they can control and what they cannot while boys petulantly try and control things that they can’t control. Boys are hypocrites. They say one thing and do another while men build awareness around their own hypocrisy and seek, instead, to practice integrity. Integrity is manly, hypocrisy comes from the minds of children.

Men are at peace. Boys are at war.

Men have found their peace. Just like their other virtues, they’ve earned it and they’ve built it. They want to keep their peace and they want others to have some of the same peace that they’ve come to love. Men want that kind of peace for the entire world and so they choose their battles. If you see a man fighting for something it’s because he feels extremely passionate about it and it’s probably because his peace is threatened. He also will not tolerate harm to come to those whom he loves. Otherwise, he’s at peace and works to protect his peace.

Boys are at war. They’re at war inwardly which translates to an outward war. They also choose battles. All of them. Boys choose almost every battle. They throw rocks at every dog that barks at them. He doesn’t know how to walk away, his ego won’t let him. He feels the need to win even if winning comes at a tremendously high cost. Men have learned to leave these petty wars behind, they’ve fought them and they’ve lost. They know when to swallow their pride. Men realize that even when you win, you can still easily lose. Boys are seeking conflict and creating conflict, eager to jump into the fray. They treat almost everything as a competition.

Boys lack mental strength. Men are mentally strong.

Men are mentally strong because they’ve worked at it and because they’ve earned it. Nobody is born with mental strength, they have to earn it. When men earn their mental strength they also earn so many of the other important and good things that I’ve already covered here. They build their autonomy, their purpose, their courage, their self-respect and of course, their identity. They all go together. A mentally strong man is strong because he knows who he is.

Boys are afraid to do what it takes to build this mental strength and so they avoid it. Most of them never grow up because they’d rather live an easy life. What they don’t understand is that life is only easy for mentally strong people.

I’d like to, once again, offer a friendly reminder that all of this is also applicable to women. All of it. What I’m really describing here is the differences between children and adults but I’m specifically addressing men because I know how lost they are and I want to bring more attention and honor to their struggle.

We hear about women’s struggles, ad nauseam. As men, we need to focus on the best men that we can be and allow women the choice to follow suit or not. We should always offer the invitation to find a better life, starting with greater levels of accountability but nowadays we’re being told that doing so is misogyny so it’s whatever. Their circus, their monkeys.

I could keep this going, I could probably even write an entire book on this topic. A man who is on the path should also seek emotional intelligence and emotional mastery. Men are always learning while boys think they know it all. Boys see other people as enemies and men see others as an ally and a friend to be made. On and on I could go.

Becoming a man

Growing up and becoming a man is a process. It comes in steps and stages. It’s not that you become a man and then suddenly you’re magically endowed with things like wisdom and strength. It’s through the challenging process of earning those things that you become a man. The formula really isn’t complicated though the process is long and difficult. The real treasure is found in that difficulty.

It really helps to have a man that you can look up to when they’re in short supply and I’m speaking from experience here. If there’s one thing I’ve always wanted in my life, it’s a positive male figure. They’re not easy to find but if you find yourself looking up to a man, you want to be sure that he’s the kind of man that ought to be looked up to. Make sure that he has the traits of the kind of man worth following first. Feel free to what I’ve written so far as a rough guide on what that man looks like.

Every man must start by taking total ownership of his life and his experience in it. This step must be repeated over and over and through the process, he comes to understand the importance of it because of how much value it brings to his life. He learns to own his life and own his experience with it and he comes to understand that this is the foundation in which a man builds a life of happiness and peace.

Next, you have to commit yourself to the process. Think of your life and your mental strength as a long-term commitment to health and physical fitness. It’s a lifestyle. It’s a way of being. You have to commit yourself to the struggle of working out and lifting weights, for example. Yes, it’s going to be hard. That’s the point. If you find yourself wanting to avoid anything difficult then you may want to get honest with yourself and see this as a childish way of looking at life. Maybe you’re fine with that, I don’t judge. It’s hard. Damn hard. And it’s okay if you’re not ready for it just know that you can be more and that other people will likely end up as collateral damage if you don’t get to sorting it out.

Get busy learning. Adopt a learning mindset. Ignore your ego's tendency to want to know it all and be right all the time. Go read books, listen to podcasts and watch YouTube videos. Get busy learning about the process of growing up and being a man.

More than anything, believe in yourself. You must abandon the notion that somebody else is allowed to define you or determine whether or not you are capable of being a better version of yourself. Your purpose is to evolve. Evolving as a person will give you purpose.

Do no harm and take no shit.