We all know the cliché about men asking for directions; that is, we won’t. Most men could be lost in Death Valley, and they wouldn’t ask for help. Research about men shows that we’re far more likely to do riskier activities in the wilderness than women, and that we won’t ask for advice, or listen to unsolicited advice.
As men, we are told we have to perform. Asking for directions, help or advice is not manly. And asking a woman? Forget it. It’s hard for men to be vulnerable to the women they’re intimate with, let alone total strangers. Men feel a need to show that we’re in charge.
In this post at the ManKind Project Journal, I write about asking for help, and share the story of a man in our group who asked for help—and what happened when he got it.