Wanting
I just had an interaction with my 70+ year old father that reminded me of something- he sent a birthday present for my child, and has now asked three times when we're going to open it. I told him her birthday isn't for two weeks, so we were planning on waiting until then. Every response of his was followed with, "well, whatever you want to do."
After the third time he said that, I told him, "Dad, I'm not your therapist, but it's okay to say 'I want [something].'"
The closest I've ever come to talking about my feelings is seeing "internet therapy" memes on imgur/tumblr. And to be honest, for someone functionally stable like myself, I feel like that's done 80% of the work of seeing a therapist for a few hours, and I am content with that for the foreseeable future.
One of the things I've learned from this is that it's okay to want. It's okay to say "I want..." in contexts other than work. I can say it in my personal life too!
I've said "I don't care" or "whatever you want, it's fine" for 30+ years. That's modern male peri-GWOT American stoicism at its finest.1 2
I have teenager depression tumblr memes to thank for hearing my dad finally say, "I want to watch her open it!" Then he sent a smiley face.
"Meh" was in Simpsons in 1994, but I think that's more gender-neutral, less "I have boundless inner strength," more "I have subclinical depression."↩
I appreciate that maybe I only think it's a male thing because I'm a man- there are a lot of pressures on women not to "take up space," whether that be physically or psychologically, but I also think there are popular counterexamples for women. That is less true for men, and certainly not when I was growing up.↩