# Is there a more girly-man phrase than, "You need to **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 9, 2007, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-more-girly-man-phrase-than-you-need-to/399291 "2007-04-09T11:35:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2007, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-more-girly-man-phrase-than-you-need-to/399291/21 "2007-04-10T00:13:05Z")
[QUOTE=GuyNblueJeans] Save for that guy I saw banging his head on a wall the other day (and he told me it felt good when he stopped when I asked why he was doing it :dubious: ), I’d say that it goes without saying that EVERY living creature loves itself to a pretty substancial degree. The Good Lord imbued us – wisely! – to at least have some self-love to help us make it through life. [/quote] Unfortunetly, a lot of people didn’t get their full alotment of self-love, which indeed makes it very hard to go through life. You’ve heard of people who seem to have everything going for them, who up and kill themselves, right? Folks with good jobs, loving families, perfect health, who nonetheless decide to put a gun in their mouth and just end it? It’s usually because, despite all their evident success, on some level they’ve never been able to accept that they deserve to be happy. Not everyone who’s got that problem ends up killing themselves, though. Some folks, like your coworker, turn it outwards, and treat other people in the way they feel, deep down, they deserve to be treated themselves. Folks like that can’t change until they learn (as hokey as it sounds) to love themselves, first. > [@](#): > > I think a much better thing to hammer into people’s heads would be to say, Treat your self with respect AND others! To me, the lack of respect that’s going on in the world is at the core of so many problems we face each day. But that’s not to say that everyone is worthy of respect, 'cause some (or many) should be in prison or worse, on account of how they treat their fellow human beings! Which is pretty much saying exactly the same thing as what your coworker said, except it uses the more manly sounding “respect” instead of love. But it’s exactly the same concept. ---
**Author:** ![betenoir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/258eb7/32.png) [@betenoir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/betenoir)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2007, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-more-girly-man-phrase-than-you-need-to/399291/22 "2007-04-10T00:18:50Z")
It’s the greeeeaaatest looooove of all. And now that I’ve posted that I’m going off to shoot myself. ---
**Author:** ![pokey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ebca7d/32.png) [@pokey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pokey)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2007, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-more-girly-man-phrase-than-you-need-to/399291/23 "2007-04-10T00:26:18Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] I want to go for a swim in Lake Me. [/QUOTE] I sincerely hope I’ll find a new opportunity to use this expression every single day for the rest of my life. You are supposed to learn to love yourself you’re just supposed to do this discreetly. I don’t know where the expression originated but it sounds like the work of hippies. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2007, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-more-girly-man-phrase-than-you-need-to/399291/24 "2007-04-10T01:19:47Z")
Well, it does have an honorable ancestry in the Biblical “Love _(“care for”, I think, is the sense that it is used )_ your neighbor as yourself”, which implies that you should care deeply for yourself in order to care deeply for your neighbor. I think the problem with the phrase “learn to love myself/yourself” is that has been so readily tossed about by representatives of the feelgood movement, that it has unfortunately acquired a certain aura of new-agey fluff that creates some unease among those of us who’d like a more concrete-action-based strategy for fixing what ails us. Which is often identified as a “male” point of view but I’m sure many women, too, have problems with emotional strategies that carry a whiff of patchouli scent around them. Plus yes, anything that sets off the mental tape of Whitney Houston will be looked at with annoyance 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Autolycus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2007, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-more-girly-man-phrase-than-you-need-to/399291/25 "2007-04-10T02:00:49Z")
I didnt know they taught people to love themselves. I thought it came naturally, and we just get better with practice. I can love myself anywhere from 5 minutes to 2 hours! ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2007, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-more-girly-man-phrase-than-you-need-to/399291/26 "2007-04-10T02:00:53Z")
Oh, sure, easy for you to say. You don’t have to live with me. Would it kill me to pick up my socks when I take them off? ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2007, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-more-girly-man-phrase-than-you-need-to/399291/27 "2007-04-10T02:41:46Z")
If I’m not supposed to love myself then I’ve wasted a lot of money on lotions over the years. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2007, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-more-girly-man-phrase-than-you-need-to/399291/28 "2007-04-10T09:04:43Z")
I don’t really love myself. I just say I do to get myself into bed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-more-girly-man-phrase-than-you-need-to/399291.md?page=1)