People said they wanted psychological insights. OK, I’m happy to oblige.

If you are over the age of 30, you shouldn’t be having emotions when somebody criticizes a lifestyle that happens to be yours. If a football player says that women should be into childbearing above anything else or a random woman online criticizes men who carry water bottles, it’s perfectly normal to joke, shitpoast, quote for clicks, etc. But if it actually upsets or angers you (and you know deep inside whether it does), that’s a sign that you are having a problem with reaching maturity.

Real adulthood is when getting upset that somebody doesn’t approve of your lifestyle sounds exotic. The locus of approval or disapproval moves inside. A mature individual has a system of values in place, and that system is impervious to strangers.

If you observe this issue in yourself, the solution isn’t to panic or feel bad about it. Trace which issue specifically knocks you back into a defensive, child-like role. The examples I gave, for example, speak to femininity/masculinity. Judging by the extreme reaction of many people to these recent scandals, this is a complicated issue for many. That’s fine, it happens. If you feel that this is a touchy subject for you, start asking yourself, “Why do I feel that I’m not in full control of this? Why do I find it threatening? What would it feel like to be confident enough in my choices that this kind of thing wouldn’t be threatening?”

When you are 24, and somebody says, “all women / all men should…”, it’s completely normal and healthy to get sore. If you are 34 and you still get sore over it, that’s not great. And if you are 44, you should really be over it big time. Beyond that age, I’m not even saying.