Who can you really be with, without pretending, without playing this endless game - "I'm fine, everything is fine, I can handle it, don't worry."

I myself do not like to be weak. But I do not like that next to me - if there is someone nearby - a man almost always tries to be iron. Not because he is like that, but because "it is necessary." And I do not need this. I need - the real one. Even if everything is wrong with him, even if he does not know what to do next, even if he is just tired.

Why can't you just sit down next to someone and say, "I'm exhausted, I can't handle it, I don't have the strength to be cool today"? Why is weakness still considered something to be ashamed of?

I wouldn't run away. I wouldn't be disappointed. I wouldn't change my mind.

On the contrary. I would relax. Because when there's someone alive and real nearby - not an image, not a pose - it's somehow warmer. Closer. Without these masks and feigned confidence, without the pressure to "be a man." But just a person. With broken dreams, with fatigue, with sadness in his voice.

You know, it's not scary to be next to such a person. It's scary - with someone who is "fine" all the time. Because it's like a wall. It looks reliable, but if you touch it - it's empty.

I don't want to be the one who "inspires a man to be strong." That's some old fairy tale. I want to be next to him when he allows himself to be weak. Because it is at this moment that he becomes stronger. Not for someone else. For himself.

I am not an expert. Not a coach. I am just alone. And I think. And I feel. And I yearn a little. Because it seems to me that many men do not even know what it is like to be accepted with their weakness, and not "despite it."

Maybe that is why I still have no one by my side. Because I am not waiting for a hero, not a winner, not "always confident." But someone who knows how to be without armor. Without a script. Someone who is not afraid that I will see something "imperfect" in him.

I want this. Real. Alive. Not fearless. But someone who is SCARED - and still remains. And remains himself.

Natasha