Lol. I’m male and idk how to flirt either

I didn’t know that many girls my age already knew how to cook. Now I have to learn all of it myself and I feel incredibly pathetic as a woman.

My mom doesn’t even know how to cook… like it tastes sooo bad…

My dad was actually once a chef… or so that’s what they say. Dad cooks stuff that is much better. I prefer dad’s cooking, like if mom made it… I immediately lose my appetite.

The point is, you’re not alone.

I communicate much better with my father

Lol I’m so clingy with my mom when I was a kid. Maybe opposite attract or something? Yin-Yang?

1. Men are also really bad at flirting. Just because men don’t hold the door for you or obviously flirt with you doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with you. Also, speaking for myself, small boobs fucking rule and I prefer them.

2. That’s on your mom. Almost no one has motivation to do chores as a kid. It’s up to parents to either make it fun or work with their kid to understand the reasoning for chores and find motivation. The whole “women should cook and clean” thing is just misogyny. People have different interests and abilities. I’m the primary cook and cleaner in my house, my spouse is good at other things. It doesn’t make me less of a man to do traditionally fem roles, if anything, it makes me more attractive. Learning household skills as an adult is something that many, many people have to do. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, no one goes into the world fully prepared.

3. There’s nothing wrong with not being close to your mom. I’m closer to my mom than my dad. They are just people at the end of the day, and some personalities work better together than others.

4. Makeup is overrated. Having good personal hygiene and developing your own style that accentuates what you want to accentuate will do wonders for your appearance and self confidence. Makeup is only one tool to that end, and isn’t a necessity. You can be feminine and beautiful without knowing how to perfectly contour. Look up pictures of women that have similar builds to you and styles you like, and then try out different aspects of that style to see what feels good.

You aren’t just a woman, you’re an individual. There isn’t some checklist that you need to fulfill to be a woman, every person has their own idea of what it means. You’re going to feel a lot better if you stop trying to apply other people’s expectations of femininity to yourself and accept yourself as the beautiful person- and woman- that you are.

I am in a similar boat to you on the hair/makeup/clothing front. For reasons that aren’t important here, I’ve never really worn makeup or been able to really do up my hair. My personal clothing preferences never left the 90s standards of jeans + graphic tees - which are very gender-neutral clothes. I don’t wear dresses, skirts, or heels because I don’t like them.

None of these choices makes me less of a woman. I am far too old to really give a shit anymore about society’s standards for what a woman is. I am a woman because that’s how I identify. Even if I don’t wear makeup. Even if I wear androgynous clothes.

I will be the first person to admit that I never had a line of men knocking at my door, but I had more men interested in me than I expected, and 100% their interest was in my confidence and my personality. I am happily married in spite of my style choices.

If you are wanting to get more into makeup, I can echo what other commenters here said about engaging folks at beauty places for help. Yes, they are ultimately sales people, but it’s because they are sales people that they have a vested interest in making sure you like how you look and can apply the products yourself. You’re not going to spend money on stuff you don’t want and don’t know how to use.

And for clothes, try stuff on and see how you like the look of yourself in them. All that matters here is what you think and how you feel wearing the clothes. Tons of women can rock some very nontraditional outfits and look amazing.

For cooking, I can recommend America’s Test Kitchen. You can probably find some of their cookbooks at the library. They are great about making recipes as simple as straightforward as possible while also telling you WHY they are doing xyz in the recipe.

All I can say for the relationship with your mother is that it sounds very complicated and well above my pay grade. If you have the means, I would recommend therapy to work through that relationship and maybe gain some self confidence on the way.

Bottom line: discover what you truly want for yourself and work towards those goals. Being a woman is whatever you want it to be.

I noticed a good bit of the comments here are basically saying to try to learn how to wear makeup through tutorials or similar, I just wanted to be a dissenting voice.

I’m a man though so of course feel free to disregard.

I absolutely hate the social construct that women have to wear makeup to be beautiful, if you are the kind of person that just likes to do it because you’re passionate, that’s one thing (I don’t understand it but if that’s what makes one happy…), but doing it because it’s the norm and expected I strongly disagree with.

On 2, my mother similarly “took care of” a lot of the housework for me growing up, so there were a lot of skills I did not posses for a long time, luckily I’ve been with my wife since high school, and she was able to tolerate me while I developed those skills lol.

3, it feels a bit messed up to say, I love my mom and dad, but I also never felt extremely connected to them, I kind of assume it’s a light autism thing personally.

4, that’s a matter of personal taste right, though I again worry about what is driving you to that desire, if it’s just because you want to look good for yourself, cool go for it, there’s lots of information on line, but I worry about it being a bit of a toxic situation wherein you might only want to do it because it’s “normal”, it’s fine not to be normal and I wish more people just did what came naturally for them (within reason ofc lmfao). If you don’t enjoy putting on makeup or wearing specific kinds of clothes, that is your choice to make regardless of what society thinks, and there are other people out there who would appreciate that genuine version of you. (I would hope at least, I have mainly gravitated toward my group of friends because we are just our genuine weird selves.

Obviously again, I’m just a dude and I can’t understand the pressures put on women in our society, I know how toxic masculinity effected me growing up though and I feel like there are some parallels.

Everyone deserves love, and you’ll find it as long as you don’t give up on yourself. Just make sure not to accept anybody that comes your way just to feel desired. A lot of very bad men prey on women with low self esteem.

My grandma said that the problem was that I was constantly wearing pants and it was blocking the natural feminine energy of the earth from entering me through my vagina.

My wife was in a very similar situation when we started dating. Here’s how we worked on each of these problems :

Makeup : Find a Mac makeup counter. They take appointments, and in my experience love teaching people how to put on makeup.

Clothing: Try everything on. When you’re trying it on, you’re not just seeing if it fits. You want to see how it makes you feel. The big secret to clothes is as long as you feel confident in it, you’ll get compliments. You don’t need to know shit, other than if you like it. Go to a physical store, find their sale rack, and try on everything in your size. Look at yourself in the mirror wearing it. Build a couple of outfits. You might have to try on things multiple times. For an added bonus, after you have a couple of outfits, take them to a tailor. It’s usually less than $25 per item, and will make everything pop.

Cooking: I know how to cook, she thought what I did was magic and wanted to learn. We watched Good Eats together. As we were cooking things together, I’d have her taste the ingredients at various stages so she knew how each changed. Good Eats will give you the techniques, tasting frequently will give you the pallet.

I’ve got nothing on flirting. We both suck at it. Her mom is still hard to deal with, even 20 years later.

1. Your ability to get sexualized/ male attention does not make you more or less of a woman, more or less beautiful, or more or less worthy. Simply put, take them out of the equation of your self-worth. Small or big, you’ve got what you’ve got. And a lot of us struggle with feelings about this.

2. Your ability to engage in domestic chores does not make your more or less of a woman. I can understand from the perspective of wanting to help out with chores but household tasks are not “women jobs” by default although a lot of people are raised to think this way. I honestly don’t trust anyone with my happiness if they pretend like they can’t do domestic work.

3. This one is so hard. Mother/daughter relationships have the same issues a lot of our relationships have except many of us always want our mothers no matter how they may make us feel or whether what they want for us is objectively good. Don’t feel like this being hard is a reflection of you, a lot of people genuinely struggle with this one.

4. Make-up is another one of those things that doesn’t make you a woman. A lot of what your see online is super high maintenance stuff. Most people were minimal makeup. Many of us don’t wear it every day. If you’re chasing beauty standards of people you see online you will probably always be knocking yourself. Between filters and heavy makeup and most of this stuff is fake.

I tried to go point by point of your thoughts here. But my main takeaway is I hope you can come to a point where you realize external things don’t make you a woman. You are a woman. Lack of third party validation doesn’t change that. Being sexualized doesn’t change that. Being a good homemaker doesn’t change that. Personally I would fail 3/4 of your points here.

Sounds like most of it is poor social skills, which I get, my parents were anti-social leaving me to learn everything the hard way as an adult. You don’t just wake up one day knowing how to make friends, do make-up, dress well. Those should have been taught but your mother choose not to. I am sorry you have to deal with this but you can with enough time and effort.

I mean when I hold doors I do it for men and women. You know Im older. Was never into excersise so don’t have big muscles. And I got a stomach. I still feel like a man though. If I could lazily have some sort of super science to give me a gymnasts body. Sure. I was born male and grew up. Im a man. it just is.

I know this is an off the chest thing, so advice and responses aren’t really useful. But, since videos failed, there *are, places that do classes on how to use cosmetics. Most of the chain companies that sell them have them available. Not free, usually, but in person really does make a difference with make-up instructions.

I had to learn a little for my female patients, and that’s what it took for me to “get it”. I never got really good, because my little old ladies didn’t go for the really subtle and delicate looks, but I managed to be able to do the basics for them in one weekend seminar.

Clothing is kinda similar, though harder to find good classes for that aren’t just a store shilling what they sell. But it’s mostly about learning color combos and lines that work for a given body type. Basic principles that can then apply broadly when shopping.

Cooking is a long term investment in the self. It takes years to get good at it, but maybe a few months to be able to feed yourself and it taste decent. You gotta think of it as long term though. You aren’t going to be a great cook at first, nobody is. So give yourself time to learn without judging yourself by the standards of experienced cooks. Like, stove top mac n cheese is an accomplishment early on. Ain’t no shame in that.

Your womanhood is yours. You make it fit you, not the other way around. You don’t have to fit some arbitrary template to be a woman. I had struggles finding my sense of self and masculinity, so I kinda relate there. That’s how I found my path, by looking at who I really am, and embracing it. Maybe you’ll have that epiphany too?

Anyway. I promise you that you’re good enough. Most people are, if they could only see themselves objectively

Do you want any of these girly things? Always happy to chat fashion and give pointers on where to find more info.

Maybe start hitting a gym for number 1? Probably not an immediate fix but strength training makes you feel good and you can work the bits that promote the classic feminine form. Also the gym can be an okay place to meet people.

Focus on leg, butt and core exercises (squats, leg press, deadlift, standing calf raise, hip thrusts, hack squat, split squat, lunges, bird dogs, planks, side planks etc), do some upper body will help with grip and maintaining a strong back (face pulls , lat pulldowns and seated rows would be fine, could include some chest press).

Start light, build up quick to a weight you can just do 12ish reps with, with the last couple of reps being a struggle to complete, aim for 4-8 sets of each per week. Watch videos and get some staff help for form with squats and deadlifts.

Also check out the classes the gym offers, yoga and pilates are awesome for core, body combat is good for stamina.

I think you don’t owe the world a specific type of femininity. I think if you are comfortable being who you are, if you are comfortable in your own skin, then just live and be and don’t worry about all this nonsense. On the other hand, if you do want these things, then pursue them, put effort into them.

I was in a relationship for 12 years with a woman who couldn’t cook and wasn’t very good at cleaning. It only became an issue when I was diagnosed with cancer and was still trying to do it all on my own. You shouldn’t feel pathetic, a lot of young people from millennials on down just simply weren’t being taught all the “how to take care of yourself as an adult” stuff. That’s not unique to you, it’s a pretty common issue, actually.

Once again, if you want to be better at these things, go for it, practice them and get better, just make a commitment to it. Learning to cook and clean are their own reward, as they help your budget and your hygiene. However the rest is just a culture of expectations for women that don’t fit the reality of most women. This has been this way a long time. I suggest reading The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvior, which is largely about what you’re experiencing in “not feeling like a woman” because you don’t fit societal/cultural standards. The beauty standards today, especially, are becoming hyper-unrealistic. Not fitting those cultural stereotypes doesn’t make you any less of a woman (if you even want to be a woman, that is).