The reality of the world dictates that men require a smidgen of "toxic masculinity" to power through. Try telling a sewer cleaner to feel more, or share his feelings. He instead should embolden himself and power through it.
I can count the number of healthy relationships I've seen in this life on one hand.
I don't know exactly how we ended up here; but unless things get better fast, over population will be the least of our troubles.
If a man is told by a heterosexual woman he's not in a relationship with that he's a nice guy, he should take that to mean she's not attracted to him. But this is confusing because the majority of men's advice about women comes from women, and the messaging they've received is that they should be a "nice guy." And being nice at a surface level is antithetical to things like assertion, which is a quality many women look for in men. Until the advent of YouTube, my impression and experience is that elder men have failed to teach men anything useful about how to interact with women, including what it means to be nice. I know of no men my age in real life that received any wisdom from their fathers besides "wear a condom."
So called "nice guys" are treated like trash, not because they're nice, but often the opposite. If a man is a pushover, lacks confidence, doesn't seem like he knows what he wants out of life, and is willingly subordinate to women, but he is superficially very nice, that signals that his behavior comes from immaturity or to get laid. Women do actually like guys who are nice, but a scant number of them are into men who lack a spine or need women in order to feel complete. A man can be nice but also be assertive, confident, and not be needy.
And sure, plenty of women are into bad boys, but that's their prerogative, and a man may not want to be with those women anyway.
I'm telling you, something's off; most women don't even want what they're looking for when they get it.
It's quite possibly a similar story for men, but I don't have the experience to judge.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transactional_analysis
Personally I've encountered the thing you've described, and think where it went wrong was falling into a persistent parent/child dynamic instead of returning to an adult/adult one. I'm a bit wiser now and can confirm that once you recognise the modes you're falling into, you can shed the (toxic) ideas like "nice guys finish last" and start having deeper relationships.
I think this very modern fear of being dependent on your partner emerged of late because of the way sexual liberalism eroded the security of romantic relationships. Nothing means anything anymore and your partner can leave you at any moment, therefore you have to somehow remain completely independent while leading a relationship.
But at the same time, to truly open yourself and love someone you have to become somewhat dependent on them.
It was a "deer in the headlights" experience. His family indifferent if not annoyed by his revelations. He had nervously prepared for the moment but the message was plain and clear: you can't fail.
I think it serves as an example of how cold and loveless men perceive this world to be. You need to deliver without fail for life. Fail and nobody cares or you're cast aside as trash.
So if the messaging is that nobody loves you for you and you're judged by utility only, we shouldn't be surprised by men's growing issues.
That doesn’t mean I’m a robot without feeling. Doing your job isn’t “toxically masculine”.
Growing up I was raised in all the bullshit about not crying or never appearing “weak”. It turns out bottling all your emotions isn’t a super healthy thing. Even worse when you don’t gain the meaningful perspective of understanding the implications of them because you’re conditioned to pretend to ignore them.
Men are emotional creatures whether some of them want to admit it or not because they’re human.
Cleaning human shit for a living or part of your living doesn’t change that no matter who you are.
If so, then we're in trouble.