Men need a drink to open up? What a dangerously self-fulfilling belief| Tom Usher

Let’s be honest with each other, lads – and by lads I mean everyone who is reading this article, regardless of gender but still being called a lad by me, because I’m setting up a question in the next sentence that is primarily aimed at a gender often referred to in the UK as “lads”. How many times do you hang out with your mates in a group when you’re not drinking?

Well there’s midweek five-a-side isn’t there, with all the seething heat of competition, thinly veiled ignominy of loss and anywhere between eight and 16 scything, ligament-jarring tackles a game that it brings. Or there’s just hanging out playing PlayStation, with all the seething heat of competition, thinly veiled ignominy of loss and so on and so forth.

But even after, or perhaps during those, there is booze. Booze is what Lynx Africa was to the prepubescent armpits of my past: extremely counterproductive, yet essential and unavoidable. Unless it’s an unusual occasion (unusual because “special” would invariably circle back to drinking), men don’t tend to hang out that much in groups unless there is some kind of alcohol involved. But don’t just take my sweeping generalisation for it, because recent research published in the Behaviour Research and Therapy journal came to the conclusion that there is “greater alcohol reward for male groups” and so ultimately “identifies a mechanism that may support heavy drinking in male drinking contexts”.

According to the review led by the University of Pittsburgh, women can – shockingly – just hang out with each other completely sober. They just get together, maybe talk and not be afraid of silence, maybe even not try to best each other or damage each other’s ankles, just simply hang out. Men, meanwhile, are sat clutching their first pints like torches in a labyrinth, their trembling, sober smiles ready to be shattered by the simplest of social expectations, quivering with fear over the unknown awkwardness that lingers like an icy crevasse at the end of every sentence.

Men are too scared to open up, basically. The traditional gender norms men follow don’t allow for open displays of genuine affection so, according to the study, they fall back on getting pissed because getting pissed can “dis-inhibit and decrease the extent to which behaviours conform to social norms”.

We seem to enjoy hearing about these kinds of studies because ultimately they confirm that the traditional gender norms of society are somehow innate – ignoring the possibility that of course this behaviour could be as a result of these societal expectations, not the origin of them. The norm that men are uncomfortable with public emotion and women aren’t is as old the hills, and studies like this seem to reassure people that things are as simple as they’d hoped.

But, as much as I do enjoy having to hold genuine sentiment under the surface of alcohol until its panicked thrashes have turned into slurred loved-up outbursts, I don’t think it’s the healthiest gender norm to subscribe to. Although women are more likely to suffer from depression than men, men are more than three times as likely to kill themselves, according to recent statistics. The fact is, a lot of this will be down to men’s refusal to talk about how they are really feeling, of repressing their inner monologue until it’s softened enough by alcohol to be let loose, at which point any distress in it will be easily painted over by the pretence that it was just the beer talking.

But more now than ever, people in the public sphere are discussing mental heath issues more openly. This, combined by the work that organisations like Calm are doing, mean it’s becoming less awkward for men to discuss how they feel, of being afraid to open up to their mates on a day-to-day basis. It may not result in men being as effusive as women, but it could be a step in the right direction.

Although it seems harmless and everyday, it surely isn’t the healthiest trait that men need to drink to open up at a time when suicide is the leading cause of death among men aged 20-49 in England and Wales, and when alcoholism itself can so quickly lead to its own downward spiral. It can be easy to fall back on tired gender norms when attempting to explain away such damning statistics, but the more we revert lazily to type, the harder it will be to bring about meaningful change. I guess that’s how long-held yet archaic views get changed, from starting simply and working up.

Men need a drink to open up? What a dangerously self-fulfilling belief| Tom Usher

Usher syndrome: "Don"t define me by a issue I occur to have"

Nick Sturley, who has Usher, writes novels, pantomimes and movies.

Nick Sturley still recalls the train journey home from a hospital check out in London when he was 10 years old. His mother sat opposite him, reassuring him that she was fine, but even at that age he was a master at studying visual cues, and he could inform that something was wrong.

At the hospital, Sturley had been given eye drops and a variety of tests. Afterwards, he sat in an office while his mother talked to the physician. Being deaf, he had no thought what they were saying, and it was only later on, by way of letters among home and his boarding college, that his mom explained that he had “tunnel vision”. He says that when he was “diagnosed as profoundly deaf when I was 10 months outdated [it] was a undesirable ample shock for my mother and father, but to be advised I would also go blind was devastating”.

Sturley had been diagnosed with Usher syndrome, a genetic problem that has an effect on hearing, vision and stability. Generally, the hearing reduction is there from birth. The discovery of a gradual reduction in vision – men and women recognize that they are locating it tougher to see at evening and that their peripheral vision is narrowing – typically comes significantly later on.

There is a debate that most people who are deaf or blind experience at some stage – which is less complicated to deal with? For several who already have one particular issue, it is unthinkable to have the two. Sturley’s sight decreased by means of his 20s, and he says his lowest point was a period of loneliness in the summer season of 1999. He could barely see, and discovered himself alone in his flat although his close friends had been away. “I drank and smoked quite a lot and was extremely depressed.” But the growth of the world wide web helped him out of his “dark hole” and he set up UsherLife, which connects men and women with Ushers, in the virtual and genuine globe.

Despite currently being forced to give up a total-time media occupation at 31, Sturley knew that he “was not the kind who would sit in front of the telly all day”. He makes use of display magnification on his computer: he has written three pantomimes starring deaf actors, two novels, and written and directed two indicator-language films.

He now communicates making use of hands-on British Indicator Language (BSL), feeling the signs individuals are producing with his hands. He says that one of his greatest frustrations is that he are not able to do things spontaneously any a lot more: he demands a communicator manual in purchase to go out socially. But he has a positive mindset, and says he tries “to sweep it aside and get on with it until the subsequent second”.

Author Cristina Hartmann, from San Francisco, knew she had Usher from a young age, but even though she did not hide it, she “never talked about it both”. Then final year, she “came out” in a website for an on the web local community. She says the response “was massive and unexpected”. She describes it as a bodyweight off her shoulders, but adds: “I did not want men and women to define me by a issue I happen to have.”

Impulsive by nature, Hartmann explains that obtaining Usher has manufactured her “a a lot more cautious and cautious individual than I would be otherwise”. She makes sure she has a friend with her at parties, and memorises public transport schedules. And although obtaining Usher can make her come to feel “uncertain what is taking place around me, which is bewildering and unsettling”, it has also created her “learn how to enjoy what I have when I have it … pals, family, and individuals who show kindness to me”.

For Emma Boswell, the greatest blow after her diagnosis was shedding her driving licence. Twenty years on, she nonetheless misses driving in the countryside, but says that possessing Usher has manufactured her “independent and challenging”. She is married and has two youthful kids. Following getting diagnosed with cancer two years ago, she made a decision to help other deaf men and women with the disease by setting up a support group in London. She is the chair of the Worldwide Usher Network and performs for the charity Sense.

The help every man or woman with Usher requirements is various, she says. Some require help with communication, other people with mobility. People with Usher can discover their diagnosis “traumatic, devastating, upsetting and distressing … but several have a very good lifestyle, some go to university and university, travel, have excellent jobs and have children, adjusting to their demands as their sight deteriorates”.

Even though diagnosis can be deeply distressing, it can also give individuals the opportunity to look for new targets: 36-yr-outdated James Clarke aims to run one hundred races and has carried out 59 so far.

“Accept the way you are. Be accurate,” reads an anonymous poem by a Manchester artist/photographer with Usher. The poem explains how men and women with Usher see the world via a different lens: “My fingers are my eyes, my hands are my ears,” the opening lines say. “I produce my sense of room with my thoughts.”

Usher syndrome: "Don"t define me by a issue I occur to have"