In physics, my friend needed a pen to correct his work. I only had the purple so that's what I offered and he declined. He's a pretty masculine guy, he plays tennis all the time and he keeps track of football. Accepting the purple pen would contradict that. It's not that he's ignorant or intolerant because he doesn't accept the pen, it's just not who he is and that's fine. A couple of days later, a different kid saw me writing with the pink pen and complimented it. For our purposes this kid could be considered the opposite of the first one. He has cats on his backpack and his bangs barely curl in time to miss his eyebrows. He is decidedly un-masculine. I don't want to be the kid intentionally defying convention, but really I chose a side when I bought the pen. I understood that I was buying pens for girls and for whatever reason that appealed to me. There are parallels here to the no unmarked women concept. Guys have to choose whether they are masculine or not, and this will affect their lives in subtle and occasionally not so subtle ways. How masculine you are will affect who you can be friends with. It can also open you to judgment, particularly if you are on the extreme parts of the spectrum instead of somewhere in the middle.
Allow me to play you out...
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