It took me a while to realise that actually, the harshness of the banter was a form of intimacy. Men opening up is a really good thing for lots of men. But I think there's also a lot of people who end up feeling stigmatised or even like personal failures because they're not able to or not willing to.
Disenfranchised loss refers to grief that isn't acknowledged or validated by society, which makes it harder for people to openly express their pain. For me, that definition hit home. My wife, Jane, died of leukemia in 2017. In my memoir Ride or Die: Loving Through Tragedy, A Husband's Memoir, I chronicled our ordeal and my own isolation. Being "Jane's husband" became my identity during her illness.
I don't like men. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love men, but I don't like them very much. Despite being an absolute darling, I remain somewhat synonymous with disliking men personally and professionally: I have disliked them on the internet, in my books, on the streets, in the sheets. You name the time and place; I'm there with a complaint about some nightmare named Ryan, probably, who sucks.
