Fierce Creatures

Lately I've been thinking about men. Not in the obvious way (okay, maybe that way too) but mostly about how the reality of the male mind can really contradict the traditional image our North American society bestows upon the male contingency. I knew this partly to be true, but sometimes it takes experience to really believe these things. Now I've always thought very highly of men in general. They have a lot to bear emotionally, just as women have, but they display their emotions so differently than women do. It's not wrong to me, just very different, and of course I respect that. I've always believed in equality, so I've always been respectfully intrigued by men's responses to certain things, emotional situations being the most intriguing of all.
Even in some (most?) branches of Paganism, the male is seen as an impervious pillar of strength, sexuality, and wise know-all of manhood. The hunter/father/king complexity of characteristics all put together so as to personify male-dom. But sometimes in life you get close to a man and see the more hidden side, and most men I've known seem to prefer it that way. At times they do 'sweat the small stuff' as it were, despite their amazing resilience.
It's difficult to see men you admire for their unstoppable imperviousness get things under their skin while you watch helplessly in the background. As a woman, I want to talk things out and improve things through my gift of extended speech, but guys mostly just want to retreat into the impenetrable fortress of their minds and go into lockdown mode. To me this is both alarming and confusing as hell, but what is a female to do in these situations? Not much really. I'm finding out that the less you say, the faster man-wounds heal. I wish I had learned this sooner in life, but alas, we can only learn once we make mistakes I suppose.
To all those men out there I say to you- don't lose patience with women that need words to figure things out. If anything, your silence is just making us freak out more. We can't help it. I'm a culprit of this myself, and thankfully I now know better. Life lesson learned. Perhaps I need to learn more about men than I considered?