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I have positive views about men to the point that I don’t consider bad behavior to be “male behavior.” It’s just bad behavior. Men I like and respect, including some on WP, know how to treat others with dignity and respect (just like most other humans) and don’t buy into the concept of “boys will be boys” which is harmful to all genders.

Aw, thanks.

I love men too.
I connect with them better than women, not that gender always fits neatly into a box like that.

I find most women (especially NT) too complex and nuanced for me to understand.
I don't think the way they do.
Men are generally more straight forward.

This is all a generaliztion of course.
There are good and bad people of all genders.

Men are often more direct than women.

I don’t have a preference when it comes to gender. What matters to me is the individual.

I’ve not really seen men being truly more direct and straightforward than women or less complex. Appearing so and actually being so are two different things. They tend to mask their feelings more because it’s considered less socially acceptable for them to express them. Of course, I don’t usually express my feelings to people, either. My brother is more emotional than I am.

I agree. I don't express myself well and I don't understand feelings very well.
I'm basing my opinion on men I know in real life.
They tend to have bad moods, yell and curse, or show anxiety easily.
I'm not saying that's always healthy, but at least I understand it.
I'm kind of thick when it comes to understanding nonverbal language.
Their more obvious moods make it much easier to interpret.

Generalization again, of course. ^

And yes, I judge by the individual, not the gender.
I just find in my experience anyway, most of those individuals are men.

I think I've had some really poor role models in my life with women.
In fact, I know I have.

Yeah, my mom was a poor role model. She was extremely volatile and had very angry/violent outbursts. My dad was the opposite - emotionally constipated, apart from blowing a fuse every now and then, to the point where I wasn’t sure if he truly cared. He quit hugging me or reaching out in any meaningful way when I got boobs. Taking into account sh***y religious stuff, becoming a woman felt great.

I don’t have angry outbursts. I have trouble expressing myself at all.

That's one of the ways I relate to other men but I'm a lot more direct & oblivious to hints than the average NT one. I tend to prefer women overall thou there's plenty of exceptions for both. Some of that is due to me being bullied by boys for not conforming to the male stereotype with other things.

Most of the men I love and admire say they relate more to women.
I relate more to men (usually).

Maybe it's because the men I love are ND and they're softer.

Maybe it depends on the individuals one knows. Offline, most of the men I’ve known were in a patriarchal religion and had lousy opinions based on that whether they were NT or ND. I like my brother a lot. He’s overcome gross attitudes on his own. Back in the day, he expressed the same sexist BS as the rest of them.

I’ve usually related more to women, but it was more about the individuals I knew personally than general gender differences.

I tend to have a very difficult time relating to other people in general regardless of their gender. I think women tended to be more tolerant of me or that if I had a woman body they woulda been more accepting of me than men tended to be but I may be very wrong.

I think what I'm trying to say is that I have a limited range of emotions in myself, because of Alexithymia.
I don't understand the subtlety of complex emotions because I can't identify them in myself.
I have them, I just don't understand them.

Men (in general) seem to have fewer emotions than women.
Anger, sadness, happiness, hunger, lust, envy, greed - The basics.
I can relate to those because they're like the primary colours of feeling.

Women (in general / stereotype) tend to feel a lot more nuance.
Their emotional vocabulary includes feelings that I don't know.
That leaves me feeling overwhelmed.

Again - generalization.
The men in my life are VERY good at expressing themselves.
Most of them are grumpy or depressive.
It's not that I like that, but at least I can understand it.

I can't read through masks or fake smiles.

I don’t really think that men in general have a narrower range of emotions taking into account poetry and literature written by men or the complicated men who harmed me. I think it’s more that they’ve been conditioned not to express a full range of emotion as much. I’ve been conditioned that way too to a certain extent. I don’t always know how I feel. I probably cry less often than most men although it’s something I’ve been working on.

Touché!!

I guess I just don't know that many poets and literary gods in real life.
The men in my life (save MR) are all kind of like Fred Flintstone types.

I don’t know that many poets in real life either. Once when I was in the poetry section of the library, a guy asked me if he could read me the love poetry he had written. I turned him down. I was only 15 at the time and didn’t feel like I could manage hearing God-awful poetry and pretending to like it all while feeling massively uncomfortable. He was an ass when I turned him down too. In his defense, he probably didn’t know I was that young. I used to spend days at the library when I homeschooled. I wasn’t usually doing schoolwork although I brought it along. I was usually reading novels or browsing. He probably thought that if I was underaged I’d be in school.

I think sometimes people can seem like Fred Flintstone and yet contain multitudes.

I mostly just don’t think people are innately that different from each other based on gender although socialization can play a big role in how people behave.

Another issue for me -

When I'm with women irl I feel more of a pressure that I'm supposed to act like them, at least to a certain extent, because of my gender. Most of the women I know are NT and I just can't act like them. I know we're all individuals and all that stuff. Even if they aren't judging me, I'm acutely aware of how different I am to them in my mannerisms, my behaviour, my speech, my everything. Even if they don't mind, I still notice and I feel ... alien or different like I don't fit in, or don't want to fit in.

When I'm with men (or NB people), I don't feel that way. They wouldn't expect me to act like a man, and I wouldn't feel awkward for not being manly. They might find me enigmatic because I'm not like men but I'm also not like (most) women, but for the most part men don't make me feel uncomfortable like I need to fit in with them.