is it in a man's best interest for him to keep being 'manly'?

It depends on what you value more -- remaining your authentic self or the attention from women and the respect from other men.

But honestly changing your entire personality in order to appeal to more people is quite insecure in itself.

It depends on what you value more -- remaining your authentic self or the attention from women and the respect from other men.

But honestly changing your entire personality in order to appeal to more people is quite insecure in itself.

Not at all. The ability to change ones personality at whim can be a very good skill... Only a social and business illiterate would think otherwise.

I agree. How else is a total narcissist expected to have friends? By altering the personality to make them more appealing and more enjoyable to be around. Given that that is an extreme example, but here's another one. We don't have a fixed personality and we generally change how we are (usually) because of the influences around us.

Except that being a total narcissist is an inherently negative trait. Not being 'masculine' is only negative because society expects men to conform to certain ideals. There is no need to change a personality that's not traditionally masculine, unless you are insecure about it. In this case the problem is not with you but with wider societal attitudes.

Whether or not it is ideal for society to treat masculinity as a positive trait is irrelevent, it clearly is perceived as such by many in society and therefore has as much value as changing ones personality if they had any of the three dark triads.

You're just contributing to the problem if you change your entire personality because the majority of society doesn't approve of it. I doubt you can be properly happy with yourself anyway knowing you had to suppress and reinvent your identity just because some people looked down on you.

Turn it around, and you have just as many problems as a woman, not being feminine. Obviously it's far more acceptable for women to wear men's clothes etc, but that doesn't make them attractive to the opposite sex.

Basically, if you don't fit the ideal, you have a choice - be yourself or attract a partner of decent quality (sorry about the objectification - could be either gender, but it's true). Usually people come up with some sort of compromise, or actually come to enjoy fitting in to their suggested role because the new attention is worth it.

Edit: This addresses sexual attraction. With things like male suicide, attitudes need changing (and they have been - it's now far more acceptable for men to seek help than it would have been 80 years ago).

Doesn't make sense. Most accept social influence is very important to happiness, if anything it would be the opposite. There's a difference between recognising the benefits of change and being obsessive about it, the latter is obviously unhealthy.

I think accepting and staying true to yourself is a greater source of happiness than social influence.

As for being obsessive about it, I think Riku is currently quite obviously being obsessive about this thing. Accepting himself for who he is instead of relentlessly pursuing the ideal set for him by society would be so much healthier for him.

I'm so manly I don't give a **** about being manly.

Butterfly.

The ideal isn't being set by society though, it's precisely him that needs changing, he needs to bring his ideal in accordance with those of society and realise that being in the top 1 percentile doesn't (always) make a difference and even if it did his attitude is the wrong way to go about it.

I'm so manly I can call myself a name like Butterfly without fear. Real men can wear pink after all.

I don't quite follow. What do you mean by ' he needs to bring his ideal in accordance with those of society'?

Society has a division of labour for a reason, not everyone makes the top percentile and complaining about it is detrimental to social relationships and personal well being. In fact properly society can't be said to have ideals, only ideal roles since individuals are the basis of it.