> I feel like the only programmer who is intensely aware of the emotional state of my colleagues. I can sometimes tell people what they are feeling (when they are opening up) and it shocks them because I know it better than they do.
You are not alone. I often feel the same way. I'm going to assume that you work primarily with male programmers, since that's the makeup of our industry. (In all of my jobs, most of the programmers I've worked with have been male).
I think guys generally are actually quite emotional, much much more than they let on. But our culture has very strange notions around masculinity and what it means to be male. Vulnerability, empathy, intuition, these things are not instilled in us as positive character traits for a man. Instead, rationality, self-reliance, self-confidence, and detachment from emotion are elevated as things to aspire to.
There is absolutely value in being rational, self-confident, and being able to not get taken out by your emotions in a crisis situation. But when you use those things all the time in your life to get by, they become a real handicap.
I can't tell you how many times I've worked with guys who I knew were going through a lot (parents with mental illness, divorce, troubled home life) but tried so hard not to let on and at the same time never talked about it when given an opening.
We have really screwed ourselves over as a culture and we owe it to our sons to redefine what masculinity is so that they don't have to endure the same emotional hangups as us.
Right, but that isn't really the discussion we're having. My own experience has been that the folks Practicality and I are thinking of are walled off both at work and in their private lives from meaningful human contact. And, since we spend so much time at work, it'd be a shame not to have at least a few of our human needs met there.
You are not alone. I often feel the same way. I'm going to assume that you work primarily with male programmers, since that's the makeup of our industry. (In all of my jobs, most of the programmers I've worked with have been male).
I think guys generally are actually quite emotional, much much more than they let on. But our culture has very strange notions around masculinity and what it means to be male. Vulnerability, empathy, intuition, these things are not instilled in us as positive character traits for a man. Instead, rationality, self-reliance, self-confidence, and detachment from emotion are elevated as things to aspire to.
There is absolutely value in being rational, self-confident, and being able to not get taken out by your emotions in a crisis situation. But when you use those things all the time in your life to get by, they become a real handicap.
I can't tell you how many times I've worked with guys who I knew were going through a lot (parents with mental illness, divorce, troubled home life) but tried so hard not to let on and at the same time never talked about it when given an opening.
We have really screwed ourselves over as a culture and we owe it to our sons to redefine what masculinity is so that they don't have to endure the same emotional hangups as us.