From weight to fashion to music, Very Smart Brothas' Damon Young presents a list of topics about which guys are surprisingly self-conscious.
Suggested Reading
Although the common stereotype is that women are the emo-est gender, anyone who's ever spent any time around any man knows that there are certain common subjects — income, height, sexual prowess, fighting ability (or lack thereof), hair (or lack thereof), favorite sports teams, mamas. etc — that have the potential to turn us into walking, talking, slobbering Drake albums. Smart women do their best to avoid bringing up these potential sore spots, and very smart women use these sore spots to their advantage. (Seriously, I'd wager that at least 87% of all girlfriend/wife to boyfriend/husband digs intentionally meant to push buttons and/or hurt feelings have something to do with one of seven topics listed above. Ya'll are some cruel motherf*ckers)
Yet, along with the aforementioned seven, there are a few more topics that we're surprisingly self-conscious about; things that might not get us all emo if you criticize them, but, well, let's just say they have a tendency to make us do the "Nah, it's cool. Don't worry about it" thing when we want you to know it wasn't cool at all but don't want to actually say it and have you think we're all emo (even though we are) …
Read Damon Young's entire post at Very Smart Brothas.
The Root aims to foster and advance conversations about issues relevant to the black Diaspora by presenting a variety of opinions from all perspectives, whether or not those opinions are shared by our editorial staff.
Like The Root on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.
Damon Young is the editor-in-chief of VerySmartBrothas.com. He is also a contributing editor at Ebony.com. He lives in Pittsburgh and he really likes pancakes. You can reach him at [email protected].
Straight From 
Sign up for our free daily newsletter.