Podbit · Smosh Reads Reddit Stories
Chanse McCrary and Shayne Topp observed a persistent double standard: straight men rarely object to women who have been with women — often the opposite — while some straight women see any same-sex history in a male partner as an absolute dealbreaker. That asymmetry, they argue, is a big reason bisexual men stay closeted.
Where this was said
At 16:50 · chapter starts 9:35
The second story comes from AITA. A gay man who's been out since 18 does his dad a favour by delivering photography work to a client's office. The dad's colleagues, some of whom are younger women, openly flirt with him and call him attractive. Flustered and in a professional context, he says nothing about being gay and eventually excuses himself. When his dad returns the next day and mentions he has a boyfriend, the women are furious and call the narrator an asshole for 'letting them embarrass themselves.' The group agrees this is absurd — he was there on a professional errand and had no obligation to disclose his sexuality. Jared then shares his own story of lying to the most attractive woman he'd ever met when she asked if he was gay, prompting a wide-ranging conversation about bisexual men, double standards in dating, and how gay men can still be attractive to women. [1] — Jared Goldstein "When the most attractive woman Jared Goldstein had ever encountered asked him point-blank if he was gay, he panicked, said no, and then spr…" 12:32
A gay 23-year-old dropping off his dad's work was hit on by female colleagues, who later called him an asshole for not disclosing his sexuality — but Reddit and his dad both sided with him: sexuality is nobody's business.
When the most attractive woman Jared Goldstein had ever seen asked him point-blank if he was gay, he panicked and said no, then hid from her the rest of the night before coming clean a month later — they're still friends.
When the most attractive woman Jared Goldstein had ever encountered asked him point-blank if he was gay, he panicked, said no, and then sprinted to a friend for advice on 'figuring out how to be straight.' They're still friends — she was flattered when he finally came clean a month later.
Most people confuse things they value instrumentally (because they get them other things) with things they value intrinsically (for their own sake). Greenberg's friend stayed in a miserable relationship for years because she was living by her parents' values, not her own — the values map made the mismatch instantly visible.
Jungian analyst James Hollis distills a good life to four things: shut up (have gratitude, stop whining), suit up (prepare yourself to fulfill a role), show up (do the actual work in service of others), and daily get out of stimulus-response to ask what your deeper wish actually is. The whole landscape of self-help slots into just these four bins.
Toward the end of their 20s, many men discover that all the strategies that earned them recognition and success have stopped working. It's a second adolescence — more important than the first — where the question shifts from 'how do I play the game?' to 'who do I actually want to become?' Most people going through it look fragile from the outside. They're actually building a foundation.
Boys are told from childhood not to cry, not to feel, not to be weak — but anger gets a pass. The result: a generation of men who reroute every emotion, including sadness and fear, through the only acceptable channel. Emotional avoidance isn't toughness, it's misdirected sensitivity.
Men need a 'bank account' of masculine status — muscle, money, success — before society grants them permission to express vulnerability. Chris Bumstead can cry at the Olympia and get celebrated. A struggling nobody doing the same thing gets contempt. This creates a tragic paradox where the men who most need emotional support get the least of it.
Emotional sensitivity isn't a defect — it's a high-resolution scanner for human experience. Highly sensitive people pick up body language, tone, and unspoken tension that others miss entirely. In the right environment, that's not a liability. It's a superpower.
Her supervisor told her she was too emotional for the pediatric ICU. So she asked herself: 'What area of medicine can I cry in?' That question led her to psychiatry. Finding the environment that holds your emotional sensitivity isn't retreat — it's strategy.
For someone with RSD, ghosting isn't ambiguity — it's a self-verdict. Their brain doesn't read 'this relationship ended,' it reads 'I am the reason this failed.' No closure means the brain fills the gap with evidence of personal insufficiency, and it keeps filling indefinitely.
More freedom doesn't produce more happiness — it produces more anxiety. Kierkegaard identified this 180 years ago: the more options you have, the more you feel the 'dizziness of freedom,' a paralytic unease at having to choose any single one. The freest generation in history is, by his prediction, exactly the most anxious.
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