Vocabulary Of Feelings

By Erin Deborah Waks

I can’t count the number of times I’ve watched one of the men in my life struggle to put into words their precise feelings. I don’t mean it as a criticism; merely an observation. And while some members of the opposite sex I know are more adept than others at identifying negative or complex emotions, there seems to be - at least in my opinion - an absence of such a vocabulary to accurately convey said feelings in the dictionary of words possessed by many men. In other words, even if they know they are experiencing an uncomfortable emotion, they don’t necessarily have a language to adequately express it.

And, given it is Mental Health Awareness day today, I felt it paramount I write about what I conceive to be a huge barrier in people healthily expressing and understanding their feelings, however uncomfortable they may be.

How, then, has this come about? I can sit down with my best friend (who is and identifies as, to clarify, female), and, within a minute, tell her that I experienced frustration when the coffee shop made my latte with the wrong milk that morning, guilt when I had to ask the already frazzled barista to remake it for me, disappointment when it wasn’t strong enough, and then a sense of relief when I got to work and the busy day ahead distracted me from such banal - and yet valid - feelings. 

We have a vocabulary to talk about simple emotions that come up each day, but also one for the vicissitudes of life and deeper emotional experiences: self-doubt and imposter syndrome, worry if we are good enough, anger at people in our lives who have hurt us, embarrassment when falling short of expectations, confusion, exclusion, relief, anticipation, surprise, shame, envy, sadness, fear, gratitude, discomfort, anxiety, impatience, determination, love.

I’m aware, as a writer, words do generally come more easily to me than most. But I have found that in many of my interactions with men, they are either strong listeners who don’t want (or aren’t able) to discuss their own emotions, or they require external help to put these emotions into words. They need me to ask them if they feel a certain way, and adapt my own interpretation until it feels accurate for them.

Last month, I drove my 19-year-old brother to university. We had three hours of driving to talk about anything and everything. My brother is, as far as men go, very in tune with his emotions. He knows when something has upset him, if he’s anxious about something, how he feels about a certain issue. But, even in the safety of his big sister’s car, he is sometimes unable to convey in a way that feels wholly and satisfyingly accurate to him, precisely how he feels - even though he both wants to, and feels safe to.

I, by contrast, can see the words to express his highly rational, relatable, understandable and human feelings like automatic subtitles on a film. Providing those words for him, and editing them out loud in conversation, was not an exercise in dominating his thoughts and putting words in his mouth like I thought it was. Instead, it was giving him a linguistic framework through which to vocalise and comprehend his own thoughts. In the way many women have been trained to do so their whole lives. 

From after-school debriefs with my mum at the kitchen table, to long phone calls with my grandmas, coffee catch-ups with my pals, hours in the car with my best friend, I’ve been trained to build a vocabulary of feelings since day dot. But many men haven’t been given this privilege. Like learning a new language, those who began in their early years have an advantage over those who started as adults. Those of us who were taught words for difficult feelings have an easier time remembering those words when under duress. Nonetheless, it is possible for anyone to learn a language at any age, if there’s a will to do so.

I don’t think the difficulty of communication is a matter of desire, masculinity or acknowledgement of the importance of such things. I think it’s a matter of pure vocabulary.