Any young boy looks for a hero. Someone they can rely on. A father figure. Someone to inspire them. To look up to.

I grew up not having that.

I remember being a kid in school and having to do a presentation on who in your life was your hero, and when the day came to give that very presentation, I faked being sick so I could have the day off. Simply because there was nobody in my life that I could say was my hero. Nobody real anyway, and doing a presentation on Superman probably wasn’t what the teacher was going for.

I have always been closer to women because they were the people in my life that looked out for me. Even in the platonic sense, I have more female friends than I do male friends because I find it difficult to trust men. Not only because of my past trauma, but also because I have found it difficult to bond with my peers. I’ve also always had issues with male authority figures.

I have had a couple of close male friends through out my life. But in general, I cannot stand the dick swinging and the way men talk about women when women aren’t present. I find it misogynistic.

Female Influences Have Shaped the Man I Am.

I have had plenty of female role models. Women who have shaped the person I am.

It’s funny, as when you only have a mother and an older sister that focuses on you, you get the female-only dating perspective. It’s probably why I have the empathy, kindness, and caring personality that I often get told I have. It’s also why being a dad-girl works for me. I can connect to my daughter thanks to the influence of the women in my life, my mom, aunt, and sister being the three most notable.

My older sister, in fact, was the one person growing up I knew I could always count on. Looking back on our childhood and teenage years, I was that annoying little brother who she looked out for, and it’s why I have the close bond that I do with her today.

Being closer to women certainly doesn’t make me any less of a man. I just have a preference for emotionally intelligent, safe people, and I have always found that in the opposite sex.

Not having a positive male role model does have an impact on me though. I know this has been something that has been brewing underneath everything else going on inside me, emotionally. As for the past while, anytime I see a father-son dynamic, be it in a movie or a father with his son playing catch at the park, something stirs inside and I get emotional over it. I know that there is something missing.

Turning absence into presence

There is one positive thing to come out of missing out on having a positive male role model, and that is I will NEVER allow my daughter to know what it feels like to not have a father. I never want her to feel how I felt and to grow up looking for any man to fill a gap.

I have often worried about my “dad skills,” but I see my daughter growing into an independent, funny, and caring young woman, and it lets me know that I am doing something right. I know so many ways for a father figure to cause pain, and because of that, there’s so many ways I avoid causing her pain.

I’ll never ignore her when she wants to talk to me. I will always ask her how her day is going. I’ll listen to her problems, I’ll tell her everything will be ok, and I’m going to take her to see special things, and I’m going to keep her near whenever she wants me near. My daughter will feel every ounce of love that I never felt with a little extra just to be sure she knows she’s loved. By me her dad.

I may have grown up without a positive male role model, and there may be a void in me. But I will not allow it to impact who I am as a man or the relationship I have with my own child. And I think that is a life lesson that has been turned into something positive.