Psychologist Mikhail Labkovsky: What's Wrong With Men

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

On the eve of Mikhail Labkovsky's lecture in Kiev, chief editor of Buro 24/7 Aleksey Tarasov talked with a psychologist, TV presenter and columnist about happiness and cockroaches.

I read all the interviews that you gave, including the popular interview with the Russian Elle, and noticed that almost everywhere women complain about post-Soviet Slavic men: they look bad, and they do not know how to build relationships, and in general are scoundrels. From here I got an idea for a conversation - what is wrong with men? What's wrong with us?

It is not so with us only that women, having problems, see only those men who correspond to their neuroses. Well-off women are doing well: their men are well-groomed, loyal, loving, and so on. But, unfortunately, a huge part of women are dysfunctional - their relationship does not work out, their romances end badly. They attract certain men to them, and hence they have the feeling that all men are like that. They come across infantile, irresponsible men, men who sometimes earn less than women and are not ready to support their families. And how to give birth to children with them in general, when they either have no work, then they have nowhere to live, and some of them also drink. And women who meet drinking men, usually addicted themselves, only women depend on some problems, and men, say, on alcohol. Further: all men need only one thing - this is a common female phrase.

So it's true

Yes. And women don't need this? They get married right away - and no sex? They, too, need sex no less than men. The point is different: when you have problems, you are surrounded by people who correspond to your problems - that is the idea of my answer.

Not the whole world is like that, but men with whom something is wrong exist in it. There are those who are so infantile that they listen to their mother. They have a family like that, a child's: like a wife and children, but still, mom rules everything. There are men who are not serious, such womanizers: he walks with me, and with someone else. I repeat that all these men exist in nature, there are a lot of them, but they are found by those women who themselves have problems, who feel lonely, useless, abandoned, disliked.

You yourself said that post-Soviet men are spoiled: we are few, but there are many women

Let's talk about this phenomenon: indeed, according to the population census, there are significantly fewer men in Ukraine. But we all understand that some women get married more than once, while others never get married. You mentioned my interview with the editor-in-chief of Elle magazine. She is many years old, and now she lives with her fourth husband. How does this gender inequality not apply to her? There are not enough men, and Lena Sotnikova was married 4 times. Why so? Lena Sotnikova is the most beautiful woman on Earth, or what? And there are very beautiful women who have never been married. All the answers are in the psyche. Not in appearance, not in luck, not in character, not in age. This is all the general reasoning of women who have a bad life, and they are trying to understand the reason. We are all so arranged that we are trying to find the reason not in ourselves, but in such and such a situation or in such men. In fact, the situation can be changed and you can live quite happily, and even with such an imbalance between men and women, you can find your own, and maybe not one.

I can tell you that many of my friends married foreigners: Italians, British, Turks - and, in general, they are happy. Ukrainian women often repeat that in Italy or, say, in Holland, normal men, and only goats at home. How to explain this?

This can be explained by the fact that: A - such women do not like Slavic men as a class, B - Slavic men are spoiled by the fact that there are few of them. They are psychologically lazy, their eyes do not burn. I will give one example: it was 5 years ago, I went to a cafe where a bachelorette party was taking place. 12 girls sat at the same table and celebrated their birthday. They drank, and suddenly one of them screamed: "B … dl, I'm not getting married, just sit for 5 minutes, drank with the girls!" There were 5 of us men, and all turned away. Only one alcoholic sat down with them, drank for free and left. Yes, this is not Holland or Italy. In Holland, these girls would not have reached the table, they would have already been taken apart in pairs. And here they have been drinking for two hours, the famous sexy female laughter sounds - and the men do not need anything, they just look past.

So you, too, did not join this company

And me too. Although I am not a Slav, I was born in the Soviet Union, and, apparently, this psychology also concerns me. Le-no-in. The eye does not burn. And Europeans are not spoiled. The European woman still has to conquer. By the way, many problems are rooted in female compliance, in the fact that our woman does not defend her interests, like a Dutch woman, with whom you will not spoil so much - you can get it over the horns. Our people, you know, are more and more shy, more and more with gratitude: oh, thank God, they paid attention to me, there was some kind of peasant. This story after the Second World War began when there were practically no men.

You say that the most important thing in a relationship is a healthy psyche and openness. For example, I feel most comfortable and harmonious alone. Could it be that you feel comfortable, but your head is out of order?

No, your head is all right. In general, I want to say that there is no norm here. Why do you think that if you feel good alone, then something is wrong with you and you should want to be not alone? What is this nonsense? When you turn 80 and you may become afraid to die alone, then you may want someone to be around. And now, while young, everything is fine.

This is already quite like a personal consultation, but so, maybe I'm just afraid of a relationship? Perhaps you will dissuade me, but I, for example, do not know a single happy couple. Someone is sure to suffer, secretly or openly. And even Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie divorced, even they

Let's start from the end, perhaps. I read a book by Angelina Jolie's second husband, Billy Bob Thornton, a great actor, director and screenwriter. He writes a little ironically about Angelina there. They are all not very good friends with their heads, Brad Pitt is the healthiest of them, even outwardly. Angelina with very big “greetings”, and Thornton writes to himself the truth that he has complexes. So what does "even" mean?

Now about you: it may very well be that you are afraid of relationships, so you are comfortable alone. As for the problems of women, they start with mom and dad. Because the first, excuse me, goat in the life of a Ukrainian woman who calls men that way was her father. Who maybe drank, who maybe fought. Therefore, the word "goat" was stuck in a 5-year-old child. And then she just works out this children's story, believing that all men are like that.

Do you personally know happy couples?

I know. The main thing, and I insist on this, is that no compromise, no concessions to people bring happiness. Happiness is brought about by an absolutely healthy, stable psyche. What does it mean? This means that you personally, as a person, feel good right in the morning, you are in high spirits. You do what you love, you love yourself, you love everyone else. And your partner is exactly the same person. And this is the basis of happiness in a couple. How can you take two sick people and build a healthy relationship? Just reading in glossy magazines, what is the right way to behave? This is impossible. If each couple has problems with their heads, then they cannot build anything normal. But if each of them is normal and, most importantly, loves himself, then they will love each other. Here I would single out: people who do not love themselves cannot love each other, so they cannot have a happy couple either.

The psychologist is such a discerning profession. Over the years of practice, what have you learned about people?

I didn’t know anything terrible. The point is that the psychologist is made from the same test as the patients. As in a well-known joke - the one who first put on the robe is the doctor. But I, too, was not always so healthy. I had big "cockroaches" in my head, which is why, in fact, I worked as a psychologist for 35 years. But as soon as I recovered, the first thing I encountered was that I was not very interested in working with them, although I continue to do so. And I started lecturing, it's like a theater for me, I adore lectures. Once you have no problems, you are not very interested in hearing about the problems of others.

What kind of "cockroaches" did you have?

Firstly, I also had not quite normal relationships with women. They were built on conflict, on the feeling that no one loves me, and so on. And even when you are loved, you still don’t believe in it. I was touchy, conflicted, I think that I had a rather difficult character. But I still changed and got rid of my favorite childhood diagnosis, which in English is called A. D. H. D., attention deficit disorder, hyperactivity, when a person cannot concentrate on something, concentrate. I began to feel myself completely differently. You say that women consider men to be goats. Do you know what men think women are? Yes, they are generally bitches, they only need money.

Sure

I left this world, I began to love people. If I meet with those who are called goats, then I do not treat them badly. I have nothing to do with them at all. I'm just not interested. I have no desire to condemn them, there is no anger. Well, they are such people, they themselves suffer from it. And other men began to surround me, other women in general. And why? Not because the world has become a better place, but because I have improved. When I was with my “cockroaches”, I also didn't like the people around me that much. But when I began to change, became healthier, more open, more straightforward, without any manipulation, without resentment and without conflicts, then absolutely wonderful women began to surround me, they are simply beautiful, it cannot be better.

So you didn't become a cynic in the end?

I think a cynic is also such a protective mask of unfinished romantics. I did not become a cynic. On the contrary, everything became more fun.

So you think that nothing healthy can be born out of a conflict?

First, nothing healthy can be born out of a conflict. Second, I'm not a fan of building relationships. All magazines sin with advice that you need to work on relationships. My friends, you come home from work - take a rest. Your second job is not paid at all. You don't have to work on anything. You either have a relationship or you don't. But in order for you to have a relationship that does not require physical and moral investment, it is necessary that you accept yourself as you are. And then you will accept your partner as he is: you will not want to remake him, correct him, re-educate him. No need. Either you like him, or find another. Don't touch the person with your hands. When you accept yourself and live in harmony with yourself, then you and other people begin to like, you feel pleasure from communicating with them.

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