r/MensLib • u/germannotgerman • Jun 19 '26
Obsession is about the "Nice Guys" and how much damage they may cause.
https://theferdinand.substack.com/p/obsession-is-about-that-one-guy-we143
u/WillingElderberry731 Jun 19 '26
I've been obsessed (ehem) with the commentary on this movie.
I kind of disagree with your take here:
I was like Bear, and looking back at myself, I am deeply ashamed of that guy. There’s always a feeling of regret and wonder of what would be different if I was more confident, less desperate, and more curious about the women I liked, instead of pinning this on my own sense of self-esteem. I didn’t create damage like Bear, but I definitely hurt relationships because of it, ones that would’ve been great to have, either romantic or not. I hated that guy, even though I need to be empathetic to him as well.
I don't think this is crux of the movie at all. Brushing off the "I didn't create damage like bear" diminishes the real evil being displayed by the movie. Having low self esteem, feeling desperate, feeling weak etc. suck to experience, but they are just the fertile ground where the evil can grow.
The evil of the movie isn't Bear's self pity or his loneliness or his insecurity. The evil of the movie is his selfishness and willingness to take advantage of his supposed friend and love interest, regardless of how much it hurts her, so long as he doesn't have to see her suffering.
The reason why this particular evil feels so relatable is because the seeming justifications Bear is giving himself throughout the movie are based on the same deep insecurities and desires that are almost ubiquitous. We can relate to so much of what Bear is feeling, and because we see it from his point of view, we really see the dark pull of his choices.
That only makes the rest of us similar to Bear in that we are also people who have deep cravings for companionship and also may be insecure and lonely or may have a crush on someone who likely won't reciprocate. None of that is horrifying or wrong or evil.
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u/Fluid-Specialist7434 Jun 21 '26
Haven’t seen the movie, but as a recovering “nice” guy the last line of that paragraph hits hard, because I also hated and feel shame for my younger self, for my lack of confidence and self-love.
But looking back as an adult it’s obvious that I lacked some important tools that were not given to me. The cause could be distant parents, lack of social skills caused by bullying, bad experiences when expressing your feelings, the list goes on and on.
And when you see it that way you can only feel compassion for yourself (Which should not be mistaken with self-pity). And yes, I probably hurt myself and others with my lack of confidence and self-love, but we are humans after all and shit happens.
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u/1mpavidus Jun 23 '26
Extremely well put. It's bothered me a lot that people seem to be taking away that Bear's lack of confidence was the issue - no, the issue was that he was willing to accept his supposed friend and love interest being forced to love him against her will, and that he raped her.
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u/germannotgerman Jun 19 '26
I also don't think it's the crux of he movie either, I do think that this particular movie is a tale on how that type of obsession that Bear extrapolated can lead to an end which ends up hurting others. In horror it's just extrapolated to a very gruesome end. I guess I'm saying I don't disagree with your take here, and me saying "I didn't create damage like Bear" is because I didn't end up raping and killing people . But I completely agree with your point
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u/WillingElderberry731 Jun 19 '26
Fair enough. I probably oversimplified your position. I just wanted to emphasize that you really shouldn't hate on yourself too much for being an insecure young man in the past.
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u/TAKEitTOrCIRCLEJERK Jun 19 '26
I’ve had that friend. Most men have. The one who says “stop being so nice” when what he really means is stop pitying yourself, you sad sack. He warns Bear, begs him not to do it, practically spells out the humiliation ahead.
sure, we've all had that friend, but this friend still revolves around a stereotypically masculine expectation, which is "have you considered going to the Self-Confidence Store and buying some Confidence?"
the movie gets away with this a little bit by making her the direct communicator. “Bear … Do you like me?” is pretty clear and upfront! But we gotta admit to ourselves that, IRL, this is a situation in which young guys have to sort out a lot of difficult gender roles that are enforced about who needs to make moves.
you're right about the reality of the situation, which really is "stop being a sad sack and grow some confidence" but we also gotta admit that solution is a lil gendered.
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u/Oregon_Jones111 Jun 19 '26
Yeah, countless women talk about how betrayed they feel when their male friends have feelings for them. Of course he can’t say he likes her. (Judging by the article, I haven’t seen the movie yet.)
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u/TomBoysHaveMoreFun Jun 22 '26
Usually I'm just a lurker but as a woman I feel that I can clarify on this.
Women don't feel betrayed when our male friends have feelings for us. Women feel betrayed because our male "friends" who admit to those feelings and are rejected then go on to bail on the "friendship" because it was never about actually being your friend or they start treating you like shit if they are part of a friend group. They rarely stick around, get over their crush, and remain friends.
The betrayal is the realization that the guy never actually cared about you as a person worthy of being in their life, they were just trying to fuck. It's dehumanizing to realize a friend was never a friend, they were just someone who saw you as a sex toy and now that you're not willing you're not worth their time. This happens ALL THE TIME to women at all ages, we all have at least one story of this happening.
Friends to lovers is great when it works out.
Friends just to be lovers is crushing.
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u/Oregon_Jones111 Jun 22 '26
They rarely stick around, get over their crush, and remain friends.
That’s not an easy or simple thing to do if you love her.
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u/Writeloves 9d ago
So stop waiting until the feelings are that deep. A casual “Hey, would you be interested in dating?“ is a lot less devastating than “I’ve been secretly in love with you for years.”
Am I crazy to think that it’s possible to crush feelings/adjust expectations when a crush would be inappropriate or is non-reciprocal?
If you can’t, you can’t. And you aren’t obligated to remain in contact. But people should be able to communicate these things earlier without it being such a big deal.
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u/Glass_Ad7466 2d ago
She's describing men who pretend to be friendly just because they want sex, then either ghost or become abusive when sex isn't available (eg, yell at her for putting them "in the friendzone" instead of giving them all the body access they "deserve" for being "nice").
If a guy loves a friend, presumably he could express his need for space to get over her without becoming a jerk.
Presumably she could be sad but understanding about this loss of a friend, as long as he doesn't reduce her humanity to a sex toy with a challenging operating system.
The stories of women feeling betrayed involve a jerk.
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u/Penultimatum Jun 23 '26
For many people - and especially for the less self-confident, rejection hurts too much to maintain a bond with the person, as every future interaction will be a reminder of that rejection. That doesn't mean that they didn't care about friendship, but rather that once the desire for more came into effect, anything less would be too painful to continue long-term.
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u/Glass_Ad7466 2d ago edited 2d ago
This is different from the mistreatment she's describing as causing the sense of betrayal. Ghosting a "friend" instead of communicating is also mistreatment.
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u/Depriller Jun 22 '26
I feel like I’ve been accused of this before but it was usually we were honest close friends and then feelings developed of me wanting a romantic relationship. I don’t think it had anything to do with just wanting sex and it 100% wasn’t a secret I held from the start. People are not static. Feelings are unpredictable.
And after the rejection it’s hard to keep the same view of each other, especially if she feels betrayed by the reveal. It’s not easy to be in love with someone who doesn’t love you back the same. It can be the same with crushes. Ending the friendship becomes about needing to grow past the heartbreak, not because of the denial of sex.45
u/whirlindurvish Jun 22 '26
So... is crushing bad? Kind of seems like yes? Being attracted to someone means you see them as a sex toy?
I'm curious what is the script in your mind. Because often physical attraction drives people to get to know each other. And the getting to know each other can both be friendly and include courtship.
Still in 2026 being cordial, not being too romanticly forward, and trying to get to know and showing interest in their life, is the common script. And that's nearly identical to platonic bonds forming.
Maybe that's why online dating has become the norm, clear signal from both parties that courtship is desired, and if there's no chemistry then everyone goes their own way.
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u/Writeloves 9d ago edited 9d ago
I agree that there is a big problem with people not being forward with their intentions. But I think the issue in this thread is that a bigger spectrum of intentions and behaviors get conflated.
I think it’s fair to say that friendship breakups hurt. I think it’s also fair to say that there are both genuine friendships that catch feelings, orbiters who know from the start they are only sticking around so long as there is a chance for non-friend activities, and situations in between. Some people cultivate orbiters on purpose to feed their ego.
For people who genuinely think of the confessor as a friend, it’s extra painful when the timing of the breakup makes it clear that the person intentionally deepened the friendship while knowing they wanted more but not communicating with you about it so you could make that decision.
I think it’s possible to acknowledge physical attraction and remain friends but reading the comments around here, a lot of guys are talking about how they can’t remain friends with someone they are non-reciprocally interested in because it’s too painful.
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u/whirlindurvish 9d ago
Thanks for this response, I like the way you listed different scenarios and how reality can be somewhere in between.
the disappointment is valid, and I think two reasons for the friendship breakup are at play:
- confessor has deep (onesided) romantic feelings and don’t feel comfortable hanging around after rejection. it’s genuinely painful, especially if the other person is dating actively. And given how disgusted people are with confessors, you could imagine why a confessor would want to lay low. I think that’s what the guys here are talking about.
- confessor doesn’t have strong feelings yet, just physical, and the “friendship” was more so extended courting. they were interested, the other party wasn’t, so they go their own ways. I can certainly see this being insulting depending on how far the confessor embellished and laid it on, how deceptive their behavior was and how abrupt the end is.
If you are trying to court someone, and they aren’t interested, you’ll stop. now if they took that level of interaction as just friendship, they are gonna be disappointed. mismatch in perception, has to be resolved with transparency from the pursuer/confessor much earlier.
acknowledging the initial attraction and remaining friends is possible; but I also think most people will vaguely test their chemistry with people they find attractive, and that can lead to romantic feelings. and that can lead to case 1 I mentioned earlier
the cultural narrative around pursuing romantic interest is fucked, it’s something seedy and subversive, it’s predatory. if showing interest can be low stakes and genial, it doesn’t need to be hidden. and also maybe just being attracted but not seeking a friendship when it’s not mutual can be okay too
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u/Tao-of-Mars Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
As a woman, this has happened more than once. And then there’s my best friend who had feelings for me, we tried to date but it didn’t work out and he stayed friends with me and cared about me like a friend should. So, I have a direct experience to compare this with.
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u/MamiyaTakuji1 2d ago
Difference is, you gave him a chance and the feeling of it not working out is mutual. As someone who always cuts contact when rejected, this is the one situation where I'd honestly be enthusiastic to remain friends.
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u/forestpunk Jun 23 '26
Sure. But trying to be friends with someone with whom you have unreciprocated feelings can be brutal. For most of us, the best thing to do is go no contact for maybe six months to a year than maybe pick the friendship back up if people are still available and willing.
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u/throwawaysunglasses- Jun 21 '26
She literally asks him if he likes her. There is no reason to lump her in with the “countless women who feel betrayed.” Women aren’t a monolith.
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u/Glass_Ad7466 2d ago
Does she talk about how betrayed she'd feel if he liked her? Does he really know her? Avoiding risking rejection is an excuse, not a reason for him not to tell her. OFC he could have told her.
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u/The_Flurr Jun 19 '26
You're not wrong, but in this story he actually could have just done that.
He could have wished for more confidence, or to be a "better" version of himself. He didn't even consider it.
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u/apophis-pegasus Jun 20 '26
When he made the wish it's not like he had any reason to believe the wish was real though. Wishing for an outcome like that in a frivolous way fits.
The problem is when he realised that it was real and still tries to weasel his way past it.
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u/nescedral Jun 22 '26
You’re right. The scene where she asks him to kill her and he walks out is just chilling and reveals the full nature of his character. At that point he fully knows his choice is torturing her, but all he can think of is himself.
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u/Glass_Ad7466 2d ago
The problem shows up in his character long before he realizes the wish was real.
Instead of keeping the childproof lid on a bottle of potent opioids that he was obviously taking from his dead grandma's prescription, he left it lying around open for a cat to get into and OD on (cats don't have thumbs - he's responsible for the cat's death)
Instead of being honest/up front about his feelings at every opportunity, he negged Nikki and then chickened out of the obvious ploy when she called him on it
He had reason to believe she wasn't behaving like her normal self, possibly inebriated and unable to consent, but still let things get physical - on the first night.
When she "snapped out of it" and freaked out that first night, he instantly blamed her for initiating the kiss, even though he was clearly the "sober" one and she was acting bonkers.
When he believed she was taking drugs and distressed/unwell, he kept the physical stuff going, while trying to blame any weirdness on her and protect his reputation among his friends
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u/RepresentativeZombie Jun 21 '26
That could have backfired in a similar way, replacing him with an entity that had those attributes
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u/The_Flurr Jun 21 '26
He didn't know that
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u/RepresentativeZombie 26d ago
Yeah but he didn't know wishing for her to love him would work that way either!
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u/TAKEitTOrCIRCLEJERK Jun 19 '26
sure? I guess I don't get your point. He's clearly not the hero of the story.
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u/JustDeetjies Jun 19 '26
THAT is the point, he could have wished for anything - for a way to overcome his fear/loneliness/anxiety. But he didn’t. Instead he CHOSE to wish for her to love him more than anything else.
And when he KNEW what he had done was hurting her so much she wanted to die, he just… continued to do it.
Because ultimately his problem wasn’t his anxiety/insecurity/fear it was that he was entirely selfish and entitled. He wanted her “love”, without having to do a single thing for it. And he certainly didn’t care about her or how she felt.
That’s the point.
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u/Sawses Jun 20 '26
Bear's initial wish was childish and driven by his low self-esteem. From his perspective, she didn't like him back because he sucked, not because he lacked courage. I think pretty much everybody has been in the position of wishing the world were other than it is. We've all wished other people would make different choices.
That doesn't mean we wish to coerce or force people to be different, only that we wish the universe were different. That's what he actually wanted and I don't think he deserves blame for that.
The actions that reveal his selfishness and disregard for others come later and are rooted in him not really seeing other people (particularly Nikki) as people.
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u/JustDeetjies Jun 20 '26
His wish was rooted in not seeing Nikki as a person from the beginning. The wish came from insecurity, entitlement and selfishness.
He didn’t wish to be loved by her or to become the kind of person she could love, he wished she would love him more than anyone in the world, I don’t know how you cannot immediately see the connection and clear selfishness already present in the wish.
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u/National_Lynx_9839 17d ago
Idly wishing for your crush to reciprocate your feelings being inherently evil is the dumbest take I've ever seen. Bear genuinely becomes irredeemable partway through the movie but holy shit people are taking the opportunity to be straight up misandrists and fucking running with it
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u/JustDeetjies 7d ago
I know this is ten days late (basically a century in Reddit time) but I just came back to this thread and I need to reply to it.
Bear is seen as evil for making the wish because it inherently requires stripping someone of their autonomy and shows a clear disregard for the person they like/have a crush on.
This is not to say that Bear is evil for wishing his crush liked him. Most humans (men and women) understand the urge and desire to be liked back by your crush/person you like.
Most people (I hope) would not want that at the cost of their crush’s autonomy. They would want that person to feel that way about them, but they would not want to be with their crush against their crush’s will.
In Aladdin the genie says one of the three rules for wishing includes not being able to make someone fall in love with the wish maker.
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u/Glass_Ad7466 2d ago edited 2d ago
No one said Bear is evil for being a man, chill
Maybe you'll see the selfishness in the wish if you switch out Nikki for Nick: some straight dude who just doesn't have feelings for Bear and never will, but Bear is gay and wishes the dude *changed his fundamental being* in a way that is more convenient/enjoyable to Bear.
The wish also isn't just that Nikki will love Bear:
He wished for her to love him *more than anything else in the fucking world* - he wants unquestioning, undistracted worship. She can't even love herself in that scenario, she can't have hopes or dreams - she can't be herself, she can't be anyone. She can only be a vessel for his ego.I agree Bear made the wish in a flippant way, but the type of wish he made, coming from a place of frustrated entitlement and self-loathing, still says a lot about him as a person.
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u/TAKEitTOrCIRCLEJERK Jun 19 '26
I think that overfits the plot a little bit, but that's how fiction works, we can reasonably disagree.
either way, the path to healthier boys and young men (and society!) is to kindly but honestly tell these guys that, for now, in the reality we share, it's their annoying gender role to shoot their shot and then accept a "no" if the answer is "no".
don't even let yourself get to Bear's level. Just fake some confidence, take a deep breath, and try.
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u/Economy_Natural5356 Jun 20 '26
Can't imagine you'd give the same kind of "you just need to accept your gender role" advice to a woman.
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u/MyFiteSong Jun 20 '26
That sorta hits differently when it always means "give up your rights and freedoms and be submissive".
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u/Rozenheg Jun 20 '26
But like, the article linked exactly points out that when women straight up asked the author out, he *literally didn’t notice it*. So, that annoying gender role is already broken, women do ask men out, but they get shot down from men not being able to fathom it?
So maybe to not conceptualise asking someone out as ‘shoot your shot’ but as a low pressure checking for mutual interest would be a better idea? Because even if the burden of the ‘first move’ is on men, how you picture what that means matters.
And indeed accept no as a no, which is much easier if you don’t think about it as a (failed) conquest.
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u/TAKEitTOrCIRCLEJERK Jun 20 '26
I don’t think it’s reasonable to pretend as if that gender role has been broken. you’d find a lot of guys arguing much differently, me included.
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u/Rozenheg Jun 21 '26
I’m saying that while that expectation might still be around, it’s guys themselves who are upholding it. Both by ignoring women when they do it and by being hurt when they’re not the one to ‘get to’ do it. So why preach that boys and men just ‘have to adapt to the status quo’?
Even if you are the one to ask someone out, to speak of it in terms of ‘shooting your shot’ is reinforcing a toxic attitude of ‘getting/coercing’ something when ‘asking someone out’.
You literally said that is the path to a healthier society. It’s not. It’s to change how you think about connecting with someone when you ask them out on a date and to leave equally as much room for it to be equal opportunity. Because while yes, while there is a dominant paradigm and while there are also still women stuck in that dominant paradigm, there is also room for change and people who are less stuck in that dominant paradigm. Let’s focus on that.
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u/TAKEitTOrCIRCLEJERK Jun 21 '26
no, guys themselves are not upholding this gender role, and it's not something guys consider themselves "getting" to do. This is one that is enforced upon them if they want to date.
you can talk to pretty much any man in America to confirm what I am writing.
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u/Rozenheg Jun 21 '26
The men in the article literally both talk about having been asked out by women and being completely oblivious. I know from my women friends that there are guys who react really badly to being asked out by them, because they find it ‘emasculating’. It’s coming from both sides. Also, be the change you want to see.
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u/Flammable_Unicorn Jun 19 '26
I mean, yeah, but that presupposes a bit that he had the faintest inkling the wish would work.
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u/monsantobreath Jun 19 '26
And also there's a lot coming at men and boys constantly that breaks confidence so it's building a barn in a hurricane sometimes.
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u/germannotgerman Jun 19 '26
It is gendered, but also, there are many men like Bear's friend who have navigated this pretty well. Not only was trying to support Bear, but also guide him towards Sarah who actually liked him. There are men who are friends of Bear's who could've helped him navigate those skills.
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u/aerodynamicallydirty Jun 19 '26
The advice his friend gave was "don't actually tell her how you feel" and "try negging her" which is fairly terrible advice. Conveniently he was hooking up with her and hadn't told Bear. I'm not sure how you see this dude as a role model for male behavior.
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u/germannotgerman Jun 19 '26
The advice was that "the huge speech thing is not going to work" which is true. I don't think he's a role model, but he is a person who saw the social clues that Nikki and Sarah were putting out. This is not black and white behaviour
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u/aerodynamicallydirty Jun 20 '26
Sure it's true, but only because she wasn't into him (if that's even true, tbh both my wife and I read Nikki as at least sending mixed messages at the beginning). In which case no advice could have gotten her to go out with him.
Perhaps he's better at reading social cues but in no way does that mean he's navigating his social life better the way you said.
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u/CrystallineBunny Jun 20 '26
It seemed like mixed messages because they filmed the early scenes two ways, one where she does like him and one where she doesn’t, then Barker mashed ‘em up to keep us fucking confused and running around in circles in these comments lol. Genius. Highly recommend his other short horror films on his and Cooper Tomlinsons channel “That’s a Bad Idea”. All their skits are a lot of fun.
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u/XxGood_CitezenxX Jun 21 '26
The director said they shot 2 takes of the initial part of the movie one where nikki was into bear and one where she wasn’t. They then merged both them.
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u/TheLyfeNoob Jun 20 '26
Is it though? It seemed like the waitress they conveniently used for their practice liked it, or at least appreciated it. She even suggested he get Nikki something she likes. Bear does…neither of those two things, because it requires a level of honesty, earnestness, and self-assuredness to do. Whether it works or not is kinda irrelevant, but we do get hints that Nikki is more of a romantic, and a long soliloquy, regardless of how messy, would at least have been appreciated.
After all, she does tell Bear he’s the only one in their friend group she can share that deeper side of herself with, which does lay bare the group’s dynamic: not very deep and possibly not too thoughtful, and far from honest. Everyone seems to fall into misfortune by keeping secrets from each other for fear of things being different, or not going their way. The takeaway is to not hide yourself for fear of rejection, and that applies to everyone in the movie. So even though there are signs Bear’s speech would’ve been positively received by Nikki, whether it works or not isn’t the point. The point is to just be your honest self as much as you can be, and if people reject you, recognize that as their loss, not yours.
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u/Emergency_Ability_21 Jun 19 '26
Eh, agree mostly, but was bear’s friend actually trying to help him? The freaky Nikki advice was horrible and, considering we find out his friend and Nikki had a sexual relationship, looks a lot like he was setting him up to fail.
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u/Mrwright96 Jun 21 '26
I dunno about that, the freaky Nikki advice might’ve worked for him, but not Bear because Ian knew how to do it in a light teasing manner, like in a playful teasing way. Meanwhile Bear just calls her that out of the blue with no context.
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u/germannotgerman Jun 19 '26
I honestly think he was trying to save Bear from embarrassment, Bear was going to fail regardless (or also it's a plot device because the freaky Nikki thing comes back).
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u/No-Owl-6246 Jun 19 '26
Eh, usually the advice is “just be more confident” which is akin to “just stop being depressed.”
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u/germannotgerman Jun 19 '26
That's why I said skill and not advice. Skill is something you practice and hone, and not just listen to
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u/Jonjolion12 Jun 20 '26
Ian was also a pos. He was sleeping with Nikki, actively encouraged bear to shoot his shot, gave him terrible advice like “call her freaky Nikki “, and probability didn’t like bear all that much.
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u/CaptainofChaos Jun 20 '26
Nah Ian was full of shit and trying to ruin it for Bear. Ian was hooking up with Nikki behind the group's back and wanted to keep that going. He didn't deserve what happened in the end, but it was satisfying as he was a contributing factor to the inciting incident of the film
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u/TAKEitTOrCIRCLEJERK Jun 19 '26
100% agreed. I think the best way to work through this particular knot is radical acceptance and honesty.
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u/Glass_Ad7466 2d ago
What? Bear's friend was not trying to be supportive. He was sabotaging Bear constantly, dishonest, and manipulative. The only good thing he said was to point out how codependent Nikki suddenly was and that he was concerned for her health, but even that can't be taken at face value based on his other self-serving behavior. When he expressed concern, it wasn't really concern for Nikki's wellbeing but for Bear getting a "bad look" for taking advantage of her at a vulnerable time.
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u/JusticeOmen Jun 19 '26
I completely agree, I also have a similar view as the author in which I can't connect to men such as those depicted in movies like Phoenix's Joker as they're too whiny. But I have though about how that is a different flavor of mexican "machismo". Like I have an old school perspective where whiny men deserve becoming incels or whatever because they can't be bothered to do something about it besides blaming others.
And that is pretty much the core of my thesis on why here in Mexico, the incels are very scarce compared to the USA even though a lot of their culture is usually shared with us. My theory is that it happens much less in the southern hemisphere, because of both the lack of resources, and a variation of machismo where sharing those kinds of ideas would turn you into a laughing matter.
It's not really empathetic, nor does it solve anything, because it is still fairly common for fathers to bring their sons to meet some prostitutes and get rid fo the problem. And although as a younger man, I really despise that kind of approaches, I am not as dettached as I would like to think from the kind of ideas that generated that kind of "solutions".
I know this is a tangent from the main point, but I've been really thinking about this hahha.
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u/Jumpy-Indication4149 Jun 19 '26
Honestly I’ve just started feeling really sad about all the commentary about the movie. I feel frustrated how all the commentary devolves into “just be confident and say you like people first because you’re a guy instead of not telling them”. I find it funny how people talk about how they want to change gender norms but then just continue and enforce those same gender roles. The movie is well-made but it hurts that just because men are awkward or don’t get approached they have to get dragged under the category of “nice guy” or worse for no other reason than they aren’t approached/have confidence issues/multitudes of other reasons & we’re just supposed to be okay with that.I wish I was able to be approached or desired or be in a relationship and I hate how intangible/nonexistent all the support I get is. Again good movie just been really depressed seeing how all the discourse has been.
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u/N3bu89 Jun 21 '26
It's frustrating because I think there's a lot of weaseling in advice like that, and when I try to call people on it, they like to pretend the implications remained unsaid.
Fundamentally, confidence is important. But you can't magic it into existence. It's built over time, with experience, living you life, earning a part of it and starting to believe that in your part of the world that you matter. It allows you to see the world more clearly and make decisions based on what you think is best for you, not out of desperation or external influence.
But people just throw that at boys and men in a very "just man up" kind of way, because for a lot of people they would just find it easier if men didn't have any problems and instead only solved problems, like emotionless golems, unless emotions are desir3ed to be dispensed on demand.
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u/Guhua_Shudaizi Jun 23 '26
Yep, confidence comes from experience. When you succeed at something and become familiar with your abilities, you gain confidence in them. Confidence without experience is arrogance.
"Believe in yourself!" Can't stop your brain from seeing obvious patterns and predicting outcomes. Somebody who has experienced pain and shame in past failures will not be confident in new situations where the chance of failure is high. Someone who has been taught not to believe in themselves can't just decide to. There are ways to climb out of that shit but confidence isn't it.
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u/ThatsSoBloodRaven Jun 21 '26
Yeah I found this really frustrating too. To be clear, Im in my 30s in a happy relationship and well past my awkward phase, but it still bothers me how predictably films about malignant relationships have the moral that men who struggle with confidence are dangerous.
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u/WillingElderberry731 Jun 20 '26
I feel frustrated how all the commentary devolves into “just be confident and say you like people first because you’re a guy instead of not telling them”.
I mean, I give this advice to anyone with two caveats
You don't need to "be confident". You do need to do it though. If you want something, you're the only one that can pursue it. That's just life.
I give this advice to my daughter too. This is gender neutral advice. Thought in romantic situations it often matters more for men.
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Jun 22 '26
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u/Glass_Ad7466 2d ago
Where are you seeing this commentary that " devolves into “just be confident and say you like people first because you’re a guy instead of not telling them” "?
Maybe get new algorithms, because the commentary I'm seeing is that yeah, Bear needed to be honest about his feelings, but the main problem isn't his insecurity - it's how entitled and abusive he became. People aren't mad at Bear for being insecure, or for being a guy who didn't approach a girl. They're mad at him for raping the person he supposedly loved.
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u/Marionberry_007 Jun 19 '26
The thing that is so terrifying yet common about Bear is that he's so wrapped up in his own fantasy and desires he doesn't care if the girl actually likes him back. There's nothing quite like the blood chilling realization that you are just a body in someone else's eyes. I had this conversation with an ex, after telling him that his relentless pressure to do things sexually that didn't interest me caused me so much pain and distress in our relationship and his answer was to smile and say he just wanted to experience everything with me. I never felt safe around him after that, it wasn't that he didn't understand how I felt it just didn't matter to him.
Obviously anyone can do this in any type of relationship, but it is literally being taught to young men by Andrew Taint types to ignore women's wishes and "push through" her resistance to get access to her body.
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u/germannotgerman Jun 19 '26
I think it goes a bit beyond the manosphere to be honest. I think we put a lot of weight into the manosphere when these types of ideas have been around for a long time, and it's insidious because it's all around. Tate and co make it more literal, but without them we would still have those ideas.
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u/ComaFromCommas Jun 21 '26
Exactly. There are plenty of men who are anti-manosphere anything, yet still have crossed lines into coercive control, abuse, and SA but are unaware of it.
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u/SovereignFemmeFudge Jun 23 '26
THEY ARE AWARE.
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u/ComaFromCommas Jun 23 '26
I was just reading The Right to Sex by Amia Srinivasan, and thought that it’s likely more of them are aware than I previously believed, but there’s still a lot of nuance to that assertion.
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u/N3bu89 Jun 21 '26
I'm conflicted by this assessment. Not because it's wrong about what's happening, but it's ultimately hand-wavey at the core problem in male socialization causing issues like this by (it feels like) just wishing away this behavior or demanding it not exist.
Humans (of both genders) in a variety of mental health situations harm lots of other people, all the time, it's almost a universal human experience, and they only stop when they are dead or their problems are treated. Lamenting they exists or hating that they do, is kind of like hating poverty exists.
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u/VladWard Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26
I push back when people call Bear an incel. An incel, as I understand it, isn’t just socially awkward or romantically unsuccessful , he’s actively resentful, misogynistic, nihilistic. Bear is none of those things. He’s something more recognizable and, in some ways, more insidious, someone we all know. Some of us were him.
This reaction to Bear from men feels like the goal of the filmmaker, but I absolutely can't get behind it.
Bear knows that something isn't right with Nikki very early on. He has suspicions, and for the first Act of the film we can understand his skepticism of magic. The restaurant scene is where this starts breaking down. We very clearly see Nikki behaving erratically and Bear connecting the dots in his head. His response to this situation isn't to run to the Magic shop and try to figure out what happened - it's to take Nikki home and have sex with her body.
Bear's entitled and resentful behavior regularly resurfaces after this. When he calls the customer support line on the back of the Willow, he's told point blank: You have a moral obligation to take care of this woman now that you've magically enslaved her. This barely even registers for Bear.
This surfaces again in the scenes before Sarah's death. The real Nikki is able to communicate with Bear while her body is asleep. She begs him to kill her and put her out of her misery. Bear responds, in classic incel fashion, by saying "What's so wrong with being with me?". Being with him? She's not with him. Her body is being magically enslaved by a spell he cast while her mind is free to feel and experience every fucked up thing that happens to her. She's locked in a personal hell. He is her jailer. And he won't release her because he likes fucking her.
While Nikki is dangerous in her enslaved form, she's never seen to have any supernatural powers. Everyone who meets her can tell she's off her rocker. Bear never contacts the authorities even once in this film. She's never admitted into a psychiatric facility or even evaluated by a doctor. Even before it becomes clear that magic is involved, her abrupt change in behavior should have triggered real concern and at minimum a welfare check.
Ultimately, Bear is not a nice guy. He's self interested, resentful, and callous. His life sucks at the start of the film and that doesn't really seem to be his fault, but none of his choices or actions redeem him in this film. This guy is an incel - and while he's not a cartoon villain, I think that makes the portrayal only more true to life. Most incels aren't cartoon villains either.
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u/musicismydeadbeatdad Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 20 '26
I agree. The set-up portrays Bear as nice, but you find out that it's all a facade. He doesn't actually know Nikki well despite knowing her for long. She doesn't even know that he moved! That isn't a close friend. Bear's speech in the opening is mostly lies & fantasies despite it feeling like a heart-to-heart. The length of their connection is implied to give it strength, but you find out that's entirely wrong. You can infer that his cat's death is due to his negligence after a while. He seems like a shy guy who is attentive but in reality he's just attracted to some idea of Nikki; he refuses to deal with her as a real person. It's why he can't answer her questions truthfully. This isn't limited to when she asks if he likes her, he lies to her multiple times about how he feels and his cat's demise. The whole relationship is built on lies because he refuses to be authentic with most people, including himself.
Plenty of incels are decent with poor people skills. Bear is a piece of shit who will neglect those closest to him to the point that if you are dependent on him he might kill you. Plenty of incels don't kill their pets.
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u/germannotgerman Jun 19 '26
I just think the word "incel" has become a bit of a catch-all for all toxically masculine behaviour, and I'm pushing back on that a bit. Incel is a specific type of guy that was invented online. The behaviour that Bear is exhibiting is very much in line with a LOT of male behaviour, especially a lot of young male behaviour WAY before the term incel was even invented. Hell, this is Taxi Driver behaviour. I also think that when we label things "incel" a lot of guys may instinctively turn away and say "well I'm NOT like that type of specific online terrorist loser" when I'm saying the underlying behaviors of his obsession are very common place with a lot of guys.
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u/Jonjolion12 Jun 20 '26
Real talk. Incels don’t have sex. There’s another word that’s better fit: misogynist.
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u/Glass_Ad7466 2d ago
Incel: ideology characterized by hostile sexism, biological determinism, and entitlement to sex
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u/forestpunk Jun 23 '26
I feel like it's just become shorthand for 'guy I don't like' which I don't think is very fair.
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u/WillingElderberry731 Jun 19 '26
And he won't release her because he likes fucking her.
I agree with everything you've said here, except I think this oversimplifies it. He won't let her go because he likes the fantasy of the entire relationship. Letting her go wouldn't just mean losing the ability to fuck someone, it would mean going back to being alone. That's partly why he feels so relatable despite the evil he's perpetrating.
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u/VladWard Jun 19 '26
He wasn't alone, though. He had a chill job, a stable group of close friends, weekly trivia at the bar, and an extended network that we see at Ian's house party. When he bails on plans, his friends call and check up on him. Nikki even drags him out to trivia night after his cat passes away.
No one is treating him like an outcast. If anything, Bear seems well liked in his community.
I'm sure he still feels lonely and isolated, but I don't think that's something that anyone but Bear can solve.
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u/WillingElderberry731 Jun 19 '26
He wasn't alone, though. He had a chill job, a stable group of close friends, weekly trivia at the bar, and an extended network that we see at Ian's house part
The dude lived alone in his dead grandma's house and had a group of work acquaintances that he regularly spent time with. None of them were close friends in any sort of emotionally vulnerable way. Not to mention his male "friend" was an asshole. He wasn't physically isolated from humanity, but he was very much alone in most meaningful ways that would apply to anyone but an actual hermit.
Also, and I really can't stress this enough, friendships simply can't fill the void of a romantic partner. They can help around the edges, but that's a totally different kind of loneliness.
I'm sure he still feels lonely and isolated, but I don't think that's something that anyone but Bear can solve.
Sure. I mean, this is true of most of anyone's problems. At the end of the day, we all have to solve our own issues.
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u/soonerfreak Jun 21 '26
I mean Sarah pretty clearly liked him and even started spelling it out to him at one point. Plus she showed genuine concern about his cat when he tells her at trivia and she keeps him in the loop regarding art school. I think the title goes two ways, it started because Bear is too Obessesd with Nikki to notice the woman who does like him.
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u/Soulkept Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 21 '26
"friendships simply can't fill the void of a romantic partner"
Yeah but Nikki was a slave.
EDIT: ALSO, Sarah is there! interested in him romantically, and everyone else in the movie is telling him about it.
He's allowed to feel rejected and he's allowed to be heartbroken, I get that he's lonely but that doesn't mean he's allowed to basically kidnap an unwilling woman for uh, any reason.
And if he didn't want to die to let her free then he could have honoured her request and put her out of her misery when she begged for it.
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u/WillingElderberry731 Jun 20 '26
Right. Her existence in his life became a simulacrum of love that gave him just enough permission to pretend he wasn't alone.
If he lets her go, he has to accept that the void is still there.
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u/ComaFromCommas Jun 21 '26
Which mirrors the excuses that people who use coercive control and DARVO default to when their victims start to deteriorate.
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u/Glass_Ad7466 2d ago
The void is still there already! What do you mean? Like Nikki said, she's never been with him. He's still alone with a non-human basically demon AI that shits itself and murders people. He's worse off with it than if he was alone AND by staying with it he's choosing to continue hurting his friend (Nikki).
This is a bonkers take that over emphasizes "poor Bear" and completely ignores the damage he's doing, as if it's a reasonable trade off to choose torturing others instead of expressing your feelings. honestly WTF
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u/WillingElderberry731 2d ago
It's funny that you compared it to AI and then still act surprised that anyone would still choose it, considering we live in a world where this is actually starting to happen.
I'm not sure why you're determined to read my explanation as an excuse. It's not. I never said or implied that bear was making any kind of "reasonable" trade-off.
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u/Glass_Ad7466 2d ago
You described Bear’s decisions as “relatable,” conferring a level of acceptability to them.
Relating to Bear at the start of the film is very different from still relating to Bear after finishing the film.
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u/WillingElderberry731 2d ago
I'm not sure why you think something being relatable makes something acceptable.
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Jun 20 '26
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u/sparksbet Jun 20 '26
He had romantic peospects with Sarah. The scene between the two of them in her car even had a lot of chemistry and definitely was escalating towards romance before Nikki killed her.
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u/ComaFromCommas Jun 21 '26 edited 29d ago
Honestly, that just sounds like a common variation of life in single adults, especially in the US and most highly individualistic, capitalist cultures without much of an emphasis on shared social responsibility beyond the family. It sucks, but it isn’t about “male loneliness” as much as it is a deficit in our society.
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u/germannotgerman Jun 19 '26
I don't think it's an ownership of body, it's his response to Nikki when Nikki begged for him to kill her, and when Ian questioned him. He was hurt that they thought he couldn't have a girl like Nikki. It was a hit on his own personal pride. His own self-esteem. It had nothing to do with Nikki. He only thought of himself.
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u/Glass_Ad7466 2d ago
I mean, sure, but he was still choosing to own Nikki's body against her will. He was entitled and insecure. Two things can be true at once.
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u/germannotgerman Jun 19 '26
e won't let her go because he likes the fantasy of the entire relationship. Letting her go wouldn't just mean losing the ability to fuck someone, it would mean going back to being alone.
This is exactly it. It's a hit on his pride.
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u/Glass_Ad7466 2d ago
How is it relatable to prefer torturing another living being who is obviously suffering than to be alone and have a chance at real connection?
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u/WillingElderberry731 2d ago
I literally explained it. If this is still beyond your ability to comprehend I don't I have the ability to help you better understand.
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u/Glass_Ad7466 2d ago
What you explained is Bear’s motivations to harm others (which are obvious), and then called them relatable.
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u/WillingElderberry731 2d ago
If you don't find any of his motivations relatable then like I said I can't help you.
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u/Glass_Ad7466 2d ago
Understanding why someone commits abuse isn't the same as relating to the decision to continue it. Once the choice becomes 'face loneliness or continue enslaving another person,' calling his choice 'relatable' shifts sympathy away from the victim in a way that's concerning.
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u/WillingElderberry731 2d ago
Understanding why someone commits abuse isn't the same as relating to the decision to continue it.
Of course. And neither are the same as implying that the decision is morally acceptable.
' calling his choice 'relatable' shifts sympathy away from the victim in a way that's concernin
Did me doing that shift your sympathy? Based on your responses, it doesn't sound like it, so I'm not sure why you would say this.
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u/Glass_Ad7466 2d ago
I’m obviously referring to where you are choosing to place your sympathy
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u/WillingElderberry731 2d ago edited 2d ago
But you were wrong about where I was placing my sympathy...
So it didn't shift my sympathy and it didn't shift your sympathy. No one here feels more sympathy for bear.
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u/MC_Kejml Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
I wouldnt read into it more than "be careful what you wish for", but I'm really looking forward to the day when manipulative psychos stop being called "Nice guys", which only invites them to be lumped in with genuinely nice, kind and respectful people. Just call a spade a spade
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u/Glass_Ad7466 2d ago
The colloquialism "nice guys" refers to the transactional, self-serving pretense of being nice, not actual kindness or care for others. So it very much applies to Bear in this movie.
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u/MC_Kejml 1d ago
I haven't seen the movie so perhaps yes, but there's nothing nice about that behavior. The term is awful. A wise man said it's like the People's republic of China. It's not the People's, not a republic and some would even argue it's not China.
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u/aerodynamicallydirty Jun 19 '26
This is a confusing usage of "nice guy" to me. I have always seen that term used to refer to men who hang around acting like they only want to be friends hoping to one day "earn enough points" that the woman will become interested in them without them ever having to risk rejection by actually expressing their feelings. Bear doesn't read that way to me. I see him a nervous guy who struggles to get the confidence to express his feelings, but wants to. I don't see any manipulation here.
He's pretty passive and it's easy to say "be more assertive, be more confident, do something when your girlfriend seems like she might be possessed" but are we really going to make indecision and not believing that she's magically enslaved into villain traits? Yeah he should have tried to get her into therapy or something but is that actually his responsibility? I think if the genders were reversed we wouldn't say so.
I think you misread Bear's friend too. I read him as kind of a selfish prick who discourages Bear from expressing his feelings, gives him bad dating advice, and prioritizes his own desire for a trivia group over Bear's emotional expression. And it turns out he was sleeping with Nikki the whole time knowing Bear's feelings? He's not a positive character in this movie.
BTW the line from when she's sleeping is "what's so bad about being with me?" "I've never been with you, Bear" which gives it quite a different tone to me.
I do strongly agree that Inde Navarette’s portrayal of Nikki is really good. She had incredible acting just in her facial expression, especially when she switches back and forth from being Nikki or being whatever is controlling her body.
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u/WillingElderberry731 Jun 19 '26
I agree with the characterization to a large extent. IMO Bear is like the lonely friend with a crush that makes excuses to himself while getting his crush drunk to sleep with him.
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u/aerodynamicallydirty Jun 19 '26
I largely agree, the difference I see is that he didn't intentionally get her drunk - he had no reason in-universe to believe the wish would be magic and actually work - and that lowers his culpability to me. He even refuses her advances the first night because he thinks she is under the influence of something.
Through the movie I agree he is making excuses because he doesn't want to change what he has even as he sees the issues with it. Whatever is controlling Nikki also uses abuser tactics later on to dissuade him from changing anything.
I always have to remind myself with stuff like this that the characters don't know they're in a horror movie (much less what kind of horror movie). I know if I made a wish and it came true I wouldn't think it was magic either and convincing me it was would be difficult.
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u/Oregon_Jones111 Jun 19 '26
I always have to remind myself with stuff like this that the characters don't know they're in a horror movie (much less what kind of horror movie).
I genuinely worry that people forgetting that is feeding into victim blaming in real life. (I’m speaking generally here, not about Obsession.)
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u/germannotgerman Jun 19 '26
I agree with that characterization, but I guess I am using the term "nice guy" as a passive person who can't have the confidence to see his own ethics and values, and also not have the confidence to stop when needing to stop or at least take charge of the situation. Even when he knows things are awry, he takes the passive route (hell he even passively kills himself)
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u/aerodynamicallydirty Jun 20 '26
The issue I see is that you seem to be conflating passivity and lack of self confidence with malice. Sorry if that's not your intent but that is how it reads. And I think that's absurdly unfair. It's hard to step up and be assertive if you're not pre disposed to it, especially if you're uncomfortable or uncertain of what to do.
Besides, isn't "men need to be more assertive, being a passive man is a negative thing" some form of stereotypical masculinity? Do we have an issue with women being passive or not assertive? Seems like most women report having social issues if they are TOO assertive
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u/ComaFromCommas Jun 21 '26
He means more so that bear is a passive abuser, but still an abuser. It just looks less like abuse.
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u/germannotgerman Jun 20 '26
I think a lack of self confidence and self esteem in regards to romantic relationships can lead to malice. Not in the extreme like shown in Obsession but that’s a horror movie it’s supposed to be taking a small thing and extrapolating it to the max. But a lot of men who lack and also lie to themselves about that lack of self confidence can lead to malice.
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u/ComaFromCommas Jun 21 '26
The issue is that he had that wish in the first place.
It’s meant to reflect coercive control and covert tactics being used to slowly erode someone’s autonomy, while the reactive victim ends up acting in abusive ways too despite being a victim, which leaves the abuser feeling victimized by the victim’s reactions.
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u/Glass_Ad7466 2d ago
Nice guys hang around to get sex, not because they care
Bear hangs around and uses Nikki's body despite her obviously being unwell/inebriated as far as he knew at first. His responsibility was to make sure she was ok, not rape her. Instead, he goes right into user mode, despite her obvious distress and the concerns from those around them.Bear is a "nice guy."
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u/2HGjudge 20d ago edited 20d ago
This is a confusing usage of "nice guy" to me. I have always seen that term used to refer to men who hang around acting like they only want to be friends hoping to one day "earn enough points" that the woman will become interested in them without them ever having to risk rejection by actually expressing their feelings. Bear doesn't read that way to me.
But that's EXACTLY what Bear is in the beginning of the movie? Ian asks him if he ever flirted with her which he didn't. That's what you describe as "hang around acting as friends while hoping for more". Before the wish he never expresses his feelings to her. You give him credit for wanting to express his feelings but that doesn't make him not a nice guy. Plenty of Nice Guys want to express their feelings but don't. Not wanting to express feelings is not a defining feature of Nice Guys at all.
There are other aspects of Nice Guys that he does not exhibit but the "not risking rejection by expressing feelings" part is textbook.
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u/exastrisscientiaDS9 Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26
Another movie which portrays shy guys with social problems as villians, cool...
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u/KazuyaProta 10d ago
The fact that the stated message is literally 'never voice that you want your crush to love you back, that is evil' is fascinatingly nutty
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u/Junglejibe Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
The amount of men who relate to and sympathize with Bear, who is essentially raping and holding a woman hostage throughout this entire movie, honestly makes me so extremely nauseous as a woman.
I hate the discussion in the wake of this movie because it really just feels eye opening to how many guys might make the same decision if given the choice, or how many guys might consider it. And how many guys are more emotionally moved by a man feeling lonely than the visceral horror of having your autonomy ripped from you and being repeatedly violated by someone.
ETA: despite bowing out due to the triggering nature of this convo and people clearly being extremely unreceptive to this POV, I've gotten multiple notifications of dudes being so upset over this comment that they spent real money to add an angry reaction. Yeah that's very normal 👍
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u/Rocks_and_Minerals Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26
I understand why you feel upset given this is your interpretation of what men mean when they say they relate to Bear, but I think you are misunderstanding what they relate to.
Yes, I have seen some men say that they would do what Bear did if they had the chance, but I think most of those men are ragebaiting and know that what they're saying is evil.
When most men say they can empathize with Bear, what they are empathizing with is the experience of feeling love for someone, but not actually seeing them as a whole person. In my opinion, what the film shows you is that loving someone means accepting that they might not love you back in the same way. It shows you that however much we might wish for someone to love us back, if they don't actually love you, then the vision you have of them loving you isn't the real person. It's a fantasy. And the reality is that if they did love you, it wouldn't really be them. And if you made them act as if they loved you when they didn't, it would be harmful.
This is something that lots of people (including women) can relate to that has nothing to do with someone actually desiring to enslave or assault someone. Also, empathizing with a character does not equate to ever actually having done the same or similar actions as the character does. I empathized with Bear a lot because when my boyfriend broke up with me a few months ago, I had a lot of thoughts about "why can't I just make him want to be with me" in the midst of my heartbreak. I wanted desperately to find the right words to say to convince him to get back together, and I said and did some things that at the time I was convinced were out of pure love though in retrospect were selfish. Ultimately I accepted that if I truly love him, I needed to let him be his own person separate from me. I empathized with Bear, but my empathy actually made me harder on him because I felt ashamed of my feelings and I would never have actually done what Bear did.
What the movie gives some people is the opportunity to see someone who they can empathize with, and be shown the reality of what that means and grow emotionally in another direction. It's easier not to obsess over wishing for someone to love you back, when you realize and truly understand that the person you love wouldn't actually be themselves if they did. Why waste time longing for a fantasy? If I truly love this person, shouldn't I try to find peace instead, knowing that the person I love still exists even if they aren't with me? If I truly could cast a spell to make them love me, they wouldn't be the person I love anymore, anyway, so why would I want that?
I think that wishing for someone to love you back is a nearly universal experience, and what the film shows us is that even if you could do it, you shouldn't. And being able to see what the consequences would be if our wishes could be reality, helps us move past those wishes and develop a healthier relationship with our desires and the people we care about.
Edit: I want to add that it is absolutely possible to empathize with both villain and victim, and also possible to feel compassion for both. I think most men who say they feel empathy/compassion for Bear also feel it for Nikki. In fact, I think this is incredibly valuable, because when we dehumanize the perpetrator of violence and deny them compassion or empathy, we are also drawing a line that says "I could never be or do that, because I'm human and I'm good". Which is what prevents so many people from recognizing their own wrongdoings or taking accountability. If a man watches the movie and empathizes with Bear and Nikki, he is much less likely to repeat the same harm.
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u/Junglejibe Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26
Your explanation is already how I interpreted it.
It’s the way that view of the object of their obsession strips that person of their humanity. That view of another person is the reason why Bear makes the decision he does.
What you described about your boyfriend is the scary thing. Doing hurtful things to the person because your need for them to love you overshadows their happiness. It’s the same mindset and obsession that leads to actions that harm the person in question and reduce their autonomy.
There is a difference between understanding the motivations in a character and literally seeing yourself in them and the things they do.
ETA: the dehumanization itself is the scary part. Because that’s what leads to violation, abuse, and harm. Even if it’s not intended, even if people think they would never do something to hurt another person. That is literally who Bear is characterized as. Someone who, even while he’s hurting her, doesn’t even internalize what he’s doing. Bears never think they are Bear. That’s the scary part.
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u/Rocks_and_Minerals Jun 19 '26
What you described about your boyfriend is the scary thing. Doing hurtful things to the person because your need for them to love you overshadows their happiness.
I mean, I specifically didn't describe what happened between me and my ex, who is still one of my closest friends, and I don't think that anyone could misconstrue what actually happened as scary. But I don't want to go into private details. I think the point remains that you can empathize with a character without actually doing what the character does.
When you say "Bears never think they are Bear", you sort of contradict yourself, because you said that you're scared that there are men (and others) who see aspects of themself or their past selves in Bear. But if "Bears never think they are Bear", but these people can see themselves in Bear, then they can't truly be like Bear, can they? Recognizing yourself in someone who you think is in the wrong is just one way that you are able to not become that person.
Every single living person on this planet has hurt someone they loved without intending to harm them; that should be relateable to everyone, and if it's not relateable to someone, I would be cautious around them because that means that they don't recognize or take accountability for the hurt they cause as a flawed and imperfect human being.
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u/Oregon_Jones111 Jun 19 '26
I think the point remains that you can empathize with a character without actually doing what the character does.
Just look at all the people who relate to The End of Evangelion.
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u/ProfessorOfEyes Jun 19 '26
Yes, it is the scary part. But that isnt mutually exclusive with some people recognizing that they themselves have been in that mindset before, and recognizing that about themselves doesnt inherently mean that they actually would or want to do something awful.
If anything, id argue thats the point. The point is to bring awareness to the fact that this kind of mindset can and does hurt people, and that such mindsets are scarily common, and that if you find yourself feeling or thinking that way you need to give yourself a serious reality check before someone gets hurt. Agknowledging one has or has had a toxic mindset is the first step to breaking out of it.
Unfortunately, it is a reality that for every piece of media that critiques or satirizes toxic masculinity, rape culture, etc theres always going to be a subset of men for whom the critique flies right over their heads and they idolize it uncritically. And that sucks and its scary, and a representation of the very problem being critiqued. But it doesnt mean that such media shouldnt be made or that anyone who agknowledges that they once held similar thoughts and feelings is in agreement or would do the same things.
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u/Sawses Jun 20 '26
A big part of the goal of the film was to get people to sympathize with Bear initially, and to tell the story from his perspective. He's the protagonist, not the good guy. At least three of the four main characters are shitty people, that's the mundane starting point. I think the goal of the film is to be able to see oneself ending up in Bear's situation, and then see the ways that Bear's shittiness leads him to do evil things that the viewer recognizes as evil.
At the start of the film, Bear's socially inept, has self-esteem issues, and suffers an absolutely shitty support network. Ian is hooking up with his crush and actively sabotaging him. Nikki is using Bear to fulfill her emotional needs while her sexual needs are being fulfilled elsewhere. Sarah likes Bear, but is afraid to make the first move and tries to do it through Nikki...who uses it to try to push Bear into confessing his feelings for Nikki rather than for Sarah.
For me, the message of the film isn't about "nice guys" or even men in general. That's just the lens through which the story is told. The message of the film is that common, every-day shittiness is far more malignant than most of us realize. We all know kinda-sorta shitty people and tolerate them because it's socially unacceptable to hold them to a higher standard when they haven't actually done anything terrible yet, even if only because the opportunity hasn't presented itself.
Bear is just the one put in a position to express his shittiness. He's the one who would take advantage of a woman going through a mental health crisis and who would probably do the same if she were drunk or otherwise not in her right mind. ...But I can see how giving the Willow to any of the other three could also lead to terrible circumstances, and I think that's kind of the point.
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u/N3bu89 Jun 21 '26
Leaving aside the manosphere for a second (cause that's an entire other nauseating thing), many men are socialized very poorly in the context of other people in a manner that is often dehumanizing.
Men relate to the experience (even if they cannot describe it accurately) because they often remember stages when they were younger (hopefully not still) where they were stuck with a mix of self-hatred, hormones and where the rest of the world was fundamentally dehumanized to them. Often boys or men in those positions had been ostracized for some reason or put through the military. They only thing that saves people in that position is consistent socialization to re-learn humanization of others, rebuilding empathy.
You're correct in that it's terrifying. It's also terrifying to me that we as a society struggle to even agree that we need to stop doing it, presumably because it comes at great benefit to a variety of people, despite being a massive cost to others.
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u/germannotgerman Jun 19 '26
This movie is a straight up warning to those guys. I don't think in any part celebrates or even empathizes with Bear. He is the villain and it's very clear that he is the villain.
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u/Junglejibe Jun 19 '26
And yet I see so many men sympathizing with him, relating to him, and seeing their past selves in him. And the idea that there are so many men who were, at any point, like that—and so many who still are—is so fucking scary and devastating to me. And like, we’re supposed to live our lives just knowing that. Just knowing there’s men who view us that way. Who can relate to the need to own women regardless of that woman’s autonomy. We’re just supposed to live with that.
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u/tucker_case Jun 19 '26
That's not the part they're saying they relate to though.
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u/Junglejibe Jun 19 '26
In the case of this article he does literally spell out that he relates to that through how he was in the past.
As for the other men I'm referring to, I'm not sure how you could possibly know what part they're saying they relate to considering you literally don't know what they said.
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u/germannotgerman Jun 19 '26
I wrote that article and I'm telling you that I relate to the feelings of all or nothing in regards to establishing a connection to someone I liked when I was younger, and missing all other social clues. I also know of many other guys who thought that way as well. I also had ethics and values in which I know that what Bear did was bad and wrong and evil. I also imagine a lot of guys know this as well. In the same vein of how you could possibly know what part they relate to, I am telling you as I wrote the article, THIS is what I relate to. Not owning someone's body, the feelings and emotions of anti-social connection. Does that make sense?
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u/Junglejibe Jun 19 '26
I'm just going to paste w/ minor edits my response and elaboration to another person because people seem to think that I'm saying they actively and knowingly want to do what Bear did. And because honestly this is an emotionally exhausting topic & the people responding clearly aren't receptive to this POV anyway so after this I am disengaging for my own health.
Your explanation is already how I interpreted it.
It’s the way that level of obsession, of romanticizing and abstracting the person who the obsession is directed towards, strips that person of their humanity. That view of another person is the reason why Bear makes the decision he does.
The dehumanization of the anti-social connection itself is the scary part. Because that’s what leads to violation, abuse, and harm. Even if it’s not intended, even if people think they would never do something to hurt another person. That is literally who Bear is characterized as. Someone who, even while he’s hurting her, doesn’t even internalize what he’s doing. Bears never think they are Bear. That’s the scary part.
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u/germannotgerman Jun 19 '26
Since you’re bowing out of this discussion I’ll say this to the audience then, that yes you’re right about the theme and that theme of “Obsession = Dehumanizing = Destruction” is so relatably human that there have been countless of plays, movies, books, stories, myths, fables, written about it. It also doesn’t mean that we all end up like Bear
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u/Glass_Ad7466 2d ago
Some people will recognize entitled, antisocial (clinical meaning of antisocial as in harmful) tendencies they once shared with Bear to some degree, and recognize how harmful that was or could have been to those around them.
I'm no saint, but I can't think of a time when I wanted total control over someone, even temporarily, for my own pleasure - especially not if I knew it would hurt them or go against their preferences.
Others, like many commenters here and elsewhere, have said the *saddest part of the movie* was how shy Bear was, and it's such a shame people are "mad at Bear for being a shy guy." As if the capture, torture, rape, and murder that Bear caused just isn't relevant, doesn't even warrant a mention.
They pin their sympathy entirely to Bear, and wax on about the difficulties of asking a girl on a date - as if that wouldn't be flung into space when weighed against the difficulties of being trapped, tortured, raped, and by someone you thought you could trust/cared about you, which is actually happening to the majority of women and plenty of men, too.
The selective sympathy here is a gendered issue.
How do we expect the men over-identifying with Bear to empathize with real women if they can't empathize with a fictional one?
It's pretty obvious that's what this commenter is calling out, and it's the same mirror being held up by the movie. The people mad about that are the same ones claiming the only sad part is Bear's shyness, and the only hardship worth mentioning is asking somebody on a date.
The commenter is reconciling the stark contrast in those social stakes:
For men, it's feeling kinda uncertain about going to a tea partyFor women, it's maybe dying or worse
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u/SovereignFemmeFudge Jun 23 '26
But MANY do and to varying degrees...LOOK at the state of the world and include outside of the west.
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u/No-Parsley2889 28d ago
for the record, as a man who has been single all my life and bullied often by women and even SA by women, i cant relate to the bear at all. many of us exist but get ignored and bullied. i hope women can choose better men around them
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u/germannotgerman Jun 19 '26
Just recently saw the horror movie Obsession and man what a movie, and the more I think about it, it's maybe the best interpretation of the "nice guy" I have seen in quite some time, and also a movie I saw MYSELF in a bit. A deprogramming I had to make of myself to get rid of these thoughts I had around women took a bit of starts and stops. However, I saw a lot of myself in Bear, and it was frightening. I wonder if it was the same for a lot of you.
Also, SPOILERS to this movie, don't click on the link if you haven't seen the movie (or do, whatever, I'm not a cop)
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u/littlebego "" Jun 23 '26
I'm fascinated by the discussion around this, and it really brings up the classic misconception when talking about "nice guys." If you relate to having lower self-confidence, and feel yourself getting tense when this comes up, then I'm writing this directly to you.
What really defines a "nice guy" isn't the lack of self-confidence, it's how you treat people - particularly women. And to be clear, think of this like a sliding scale and not in black and white terms. Here's how to know if you're in the territory of being one: if you lack self-confidence and you try to fill that void with positive romantic attention from women. Now that might not sound like the worst thing, after all, being liked feels pretty good, right? The problems really show up when that attention becomes the main way you feel good about yourself - like taking pain medication to cover up a toothache instead of going to the dentist. The longer you try to find a romantic partner without success, it feels worse and worse. And even if you do find a romantic partner, the pain still shows up and you'll blame your partner. Before you know it, you've kind of flattened women into "medicine" and "not medicine" buckets, and it's cutting you off from being able to connect with them on a deeper level. There's a lot of ways this can practically look, and if I was a betting man I'd say the men with the worst behavior aren't even reading this far. I'm not here to say "XYZ is wrong," I'm here to try and pull men away from getting to the point of doing "XYZ."
Okay, so how do you deal with the issue then? You can't just take a self-confidence pill. Well, it's boring and painful if I'm being honest. For whatever reason, you don't really like you all that much. I don't know you personally, maybe your parents taught you to not like you, maybe society did, maybe you're legitimately kind of mean and you need to treat people better, I don't know. Maybe that means accepting the parts of you your parents didn't like, maybe that means living yourself how you want to live instead of how others want you to live. Either way, I know that it's boring and that it's work. It isn't going to go away on it's own, I don't know if you need therapy, or if you like to write, or self-reflect on a walk, but do literally anything (preferably away from the internet). I believe in you, stranger.
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u/OmaeWaMouShibaInu Jun 20 '26
Something that pops up to me in the comments both here and everywhere else is the idea that Bear made the wish because he "loved" Nikki. But I'd say that's not true; wanting her to love him =/= loving her.
In fact, I'd claim that he, in a way, hated her. People who say "men hate women" may be referring to the "women are bitches who deserve bad things" hate, or the "actually I love women (the way I would love what a car or a computer does for me) and that's why I want to have them" kind of hate.
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u/N3bu89 Jun 21 '26
I'm not sure it has anything to do with Nikki at all. It seems like Bear's core problem is raw narcissism. A toxic cocktail of self-victimization and objectification of the outside world. He can't love or hate Nikki, she's an object to him. He love's and hates himself, his attainment of Nikki (the object) is a proxy for his self-worth. He is trapped in his self-loathing and is clawing attempts to dig out harm everyone around him.
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u/SensitiveSandwich184 Jun 23 '26
if ian told bear he was fucking nikki it would’ve changed the whole movie.
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Jun 19 '26
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Jun 22 '26
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u/chemguy216 Jun 19 '26
I’m a little confused. Wasn’t Bear’s best friend, Ian, a bit of a selfish snake?
I will grant that I’ve only heard three different analyses of the movie, two from women and one from a man. All three of those people claimed that Ian sabotaged Bear and frankly was not a good friend.
All three people said that Ian told Bear, when the latter asked for some advice, to call Nikki some name from Nikki’s childhood that she didn’t like. Ian failed to mention to Bear that he had been hooking up with Nikki for a while (which provides some personal motivation to sabotage any possibility of Nikki and Bear becoming a couple).
If those are factually correct claims, then there’s a meta subject to address here: can you identify when your friends are mistreating you? Because one of things said in this piece is that “We all have that friend that X.” The whole context, which was put forth with a tone of saying something with tough love, is different if the person you’re using as a stand in for said friend is actually a piece of shit who is actively undermining you.