As always, in life, it’s all a matter of “show, don’t tell”.
In university, the playwright Oscar Wilde, a notorious and entirely unapologetic lover of men, was ambushed by four students who attacked him. An experience boxer and an excellent rower, Wilde successfully fought the four young men off. He stood his ground and they retreated, badly humiliated and pummeled by a man they had regarded an easy target.
People can tell you whatever they hell they wish to tell you, and it is up to you whether or not to beliebve them. Self-worth and self-confidence is, ultimately, something innate — it has to come from a place deep inside yourself. A part of you that knows that you are a capable man, the very core of what makes you who you are. Your core, if you will. You can steel it through hardship, through experience, exercise. Sooner or later, it will be put to the test. And that’s when the world will weigh you, and find you either are the man you thought you were, or found lacking…
People have the “right” to tell you what they wish to tell you. And you, yourself, have the right to show them wrong, if you can. As for what makes a man a “real man”, the jury isn’t out on that. I say, it is any man who can stand his ground and take care of himself when push comes to shove and fists start swinging. Some men flee, some men freeze, and some men fight. Only one of these three categories of men will look at themselves in the mirror once danger leaves and do so with pride, liking what they see. Be that type of man. Or die trying.