3 Controversial but Essential Skills That Men in Their 20’s Must Have

Time to do away with the stereotypes that are holding you back.

Over the past few years, I must have read 1001 listicles containing skills a man must master. And the only problem I have with them is that they all preach the same typical ideas: a man should know how to use a toolbox, knot a tie, change a tire or lift heavy things just for the sake of it. Basically anything that makes him “a man’s man.”

While I do acknowledge that those things can be helpful at times, this article is not just gonna be a regurgitation of all that.

Rather, I’ll be concentrating on things that may not be seen as so “macho,” but will actually play an integral role in your everyday life (because, how many times will you actually need to change a tire or fix that lightbulb?). And thankfully, they're all very easy to learn.

1: A Man Must Have Basic Knowledge of Fashion.

Don’t judge a book by its cover.

That’s a sentence that gets thrown around all too often and of course, in a perfect world, we wouldn’t just judge people based on our own perception of their appearance and nothing else.

But as you probably already know, this is not a perfect world, and research has shown that it takes as little as a tenth of a second for someone to make their first judgement of who you are. A tenth of a second! That’s shorter than it takes you to even blink your eyes and you know what’s worse? Further research has shown that even when facts that are contrary to a person’s first impression of you are presented to that person, they tend to still continue judging you based on that first impression, not based on the facts.

What this all means is that how you present yourself to the world is everything. And the clothes you have on you are obviously the first thing people will see when they look at you.

So, as a young man in the prime of his life, you shouldn’t go outside looking like a bum. Contrary to what some guys might believe, it is neither feminine nor superficial for you to actually care about looking good in public.

You need to equip yourself with some knowledge of fashion. This is your 20’s, the period when you’ll look to start earning a living and possibly find a life partner; and men who are well-dressed simply have a much higher chance of getting business opportunities and getting a date. That’s why this skill is essential for you.

You don’t need to become a “fashionista,” you just need to have basic knowledge of what looks good on you and what doesn’t.

2: A Man Must Be Able to Feed Himself.

No, I’m not talking about being able to provide money for your food. That’s obviously important, but so also is the ability to actually cook that food. For far too long we have been brought up with the idea that “the kitchen is no place for a man.”

This might be a primal trait as during the time of the early men, the males did the hunting, came back with the meat and rested while the women did the cooking.

Now that’s all good if you’re a neanderthal but dude, this is the 21st century. It’s time for you to finally evolve out of that archaic idea because while it’s been a very damaging stereotype for women, men don’t realise that it has damaged them too.

I know so many guys who are completely helpless in the kitchen once there’s no woman around, simply because they feel it is not manly to cook. And this is especially bad for guys in their 20’s who live alone because they’re either still in school or they’re just starting their lives as bachelors.

Why this is so problematic is that it’s very likely for such guys to end up becoming regulars at McDonald’s, get addicted to every unhealthy item on the menu, get overweight, ultimately become unhappy with their body and by extension, their life; all of which could very well have been avoided by learning even just the basic aspects of cooking.

Knowing how to cook is such an essential skill because you can’t hope to maintain a healthy lifestyle if you’re always eating out. Also, if you invite a girl over and turn the tables by giving her a home-cooked meal, you certainly will score some major points for that.

In fact, an interesting study showed that women find men most attractive when they’re in the kitchen, not when they’re being all macho and lifting heavy things. I bet you weren’t expecting that.

The good news is that you don’t even need to be a gourmet chef. Because of how low guys have set the bar, just having basic cooking skills makes you look like Gordon Ramsay.

3: A Man Must Have Basic Knowledge of Skincare.

This is another area where stereotypes have really affected us negatively. Honestly, it’s starting to seem like we’re always being our own worst enemies because men do want to look good. We want to look in the mirror and not see an acne-riddled face or eyes surrounded by dark circles. We do want to have great-looking smooth skin but the only problem is that we are dead scared of doing anything we consider even a little feminine, and skincare has already been labelled as exactly that.

The irony here is that the male celebrities you idolise — right from David Beckham to Zac Efron — all follow skincare routines, religiously. In fact, sometimes they even wear make-up! Obviously, you should never go that far but the point is this: you just sitting back home, wishing you looked that good but not actually doing anything to improve your skin just because it doesn’t fit into a warped version of manliness you’ve been fed since childhood is not a smart move.

Women have long realised the importance of skincare and that’s why they’re way ahead of us in that area. The good news though is that men have a natural competitive advantage as our skin is thicker and ages slower than theirs. So you really don’t need to start wearing face masks and covering your eyes with cucumbers (cringy, I know), you just need to make basic changes like:

• Regularly washing your sheets, pillowcase, towel and basically anything that touches your face frequently.
• Bathing or at least washing your face before you sleep.
• Getting enough sleep when you do go to bed to prevent dark eye circles.
• Using sunscreen.
• Drinking more water.
• Reducing sugar intake

Besides, these are all things that you should already be doing to maintain a healthy lifestyle in general.

Takeaway.

It is clear, to me at least, that men must have a rethink on some of the stereotypes that they’ve become accustomed to because, as has been shown in this article, they’re harming us in multiple areas of our lives.

The three skills I’ve mentioned above are not hard to acquire, as long as you’re willing to finally have a change of perception.

If you’re to get only one takeaway from all that has been said in this article, then it should be the fact that you need to stop being scared of doing things that you know will improve your quality of life just because they don’t fit into a particular narrative. So perhaps, the ability to do what you want irrespective of societal perception can be added to this list as the 4th essential skill you need.