There's a difference between having feelings and having language for them. Most men I know have the first. Far fewer have the second.
I didn't, for years. I could feel something shifting in me — pressure, unease, anger, sadness — but when someone asked me what was going on, I'd say "I don't know." And I meant it. It wasn't avoidance. It was genuinely that I didn't have the vocabulary to describe what was happening inside me.
Here's what I want you to understand: this isn't a character defect. It's a training gap. Most boys aren't taught to name what they feel. They're taught to manage it, suppress it, or fix the external situation that's causing it. So by the time they're men, they've got decades of experience solving problems and almost none describing inner states.
If you're asking this about a man in your life, don't demand that he suddenly become fluent. Ask better, smaller questions. "What's happening in your body right now?" works better than "How are you feeling?" Give him room to be inarticulate. The words come — but they come slowly, and they come when he feels safe enough to fumble.
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