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What Men Really Think

Write for Us

Your story. Your words. Nobody touches them.

Submit your story
An open handwritten notebook and a pencil beside a mug on a weathered table

To the men who write here

I want your story, told the way you'd tell it. This site exists because honest communication between men still matters, and somebody should hear what we really think, how we think and why.

I won't edit your words

No one here will fix your grammar, smooth your phrasing or correct your spelling. How you write is part of who you are. If it's your story, it runs the way you wrote it, or it doesn't run at all.

Language

Raw is good, as long as it fits the venue. If cursing is how you talk because of where you come from, how you were raised or the life you've lived, write it that way. What doesn't belong is language used for its own sake: shock with no story under it.

Hard subjects

If your story is about suicide, self-harm or wanting to die, I want to read it. Those are the stories men most need to hear. Just don't describe how. That detail can put a man who's struggling at risk, and leaving it out takes nothing from your story. If it's there, I'll send the piece back so you can take it out.

What I won't publish

  • Politics. Parties, candidates, elections and movements have their own platforms. If your story involves a system like the courts or the military, tell what happened to you, not which side is right.
  • Religion as a cause. Your faith, or your loss of it, can come up as part of your life. Preaching, promoting or attacking a belief cannot.
  • Anything that isn't yours. Your own life, your own words. No AI, no borrowed stories.
  • Attacks on people. Don't name or identify a private person to expose or get back at them.

If you write in another language

Your piece is translated so more men can read it, and your original is always published alongside it. Your version is the real one.

It stays yours

You keep the rights to your story. You can ask me to take it down at any time. Once a piece has gone out in the weekly newsletter, those emails can't be called back, but it comes off the site right away.

Nobody here is paid, including the writers. That's on purpose. I want men writing because they have something to say, not because there's a check in it. If you take the time to write something from the heart and put it out there, I'm good with that. That's what this place is for.

The Publisher

Four ways to write

A full story

As long as it needs to be. Most run between 500 and 2,000 words, but there's no rule.

100 words

A whole story in a hundred words or fewer. Harder than it sounds, and often hits harder too.

An answer

Answer the Question of the Week. The best answers run in the Sunday Edition.

Invent one

A product that doesn't exist but should, plus the real version a man can do today. The best run in the monthly Catalog.

Stuck? Start with a question

Pick one that hits close and start writing. You don't have to answer it exactly. It's just a way in.

Work and Money

  • What did your first real paycheck teach you?
  • What does your job cost you that nobody sees?

Fathers and Family

  • What's the best advice your father never gave you?
  • What do you want your kids to know that you haven't told them?

Love and Marriage

  • When did you know it was over?
  • What does the woman in your life not understand about you?

Friendship

  • Who would you call at 3 a.m., and when did you last call him?
  • Which friend did you lose, and why?

Mind and Emotions

  • When in your life have you felt most alone?
  • What do you carry that nobody knows about?

Growing Up and Growing Old

  • When did you first feel like a man?
  • How would you like to be remembered?

What happens after you submit

  1. 01

    You send it

    You'll get an email confirming it arrived.

  2. 02

    I read it

    Every piece is read by a person. Not a filter, not a machine.

  3. 03

    You hear back

    Published as written, sent back with the reason so you can change it yourself, or declined with the rule it crossed.

What to write about

Pick the one subject your story fits best. If it fits none of them, that's what Open Mic is for.

Work and Career

Jobs, bosses, ambition, getting fired, what work means to who you are.

Business and Success

Building something, risk, failure, competition, what "making it" really means.

Money

Earning, spending, debt, providing, what money does to a man's sense of worth.

Sex and Intimacy

Desire, performance, insecurity, what men want and won't say out loud.

Love and Dating

Attraction, pursuit, rejection, what men look for and why.

Marriage, Divorce and Breakups

Commitment, staying, leaving, being left, starting over.

Women

What men notice, admire, fear and misunderstand about women.

Fatherhood and Family

Being a dad, your own father, sons and daughters, family duty.

Friendship and Brotherhood

Male friendship, losing friends, loyalty, who men actually confide in.

Masculinity and Identity

What being a man means to you, what you've carried, what you've rejected.

Mind and Emotions

Loneliness, anger, fear, depression, pride.

Body and Health

Fitness, appearance, aging bodies, health scares, vanity you won't admit.

Playtime

Sports, cars, bikes, games, hunting, fishing, music: what keeps a man sane.

Risk, Danger and Service

Military, first responders, fights, dangerous work, what danger does to a man.

Growing Up

Boyhood, school, the moment you felt like a man, what shaped you.

Purpose and Meaning

What you're living for, what drives you, what you'd sacrifice for.

Society and Culture

How life is for men where you live: customs, expectations, generations.

Home and Everyday Life

Domestic life, cooking, chores, routine, the unglamorous parts.

Aging and Legacy

Getting older, mortality, what you'll leave behind.

Regrets and Lessons

Mistakes, apologies never made, what you'd tell your younger self.

Open Mic

Anything that doesn't fit anywhere else.

Ready? Write it real.

It takes a pen name, an email and your story.

Submit your story