Community Munchausen's by Internet (Malingerers, Munchies, Spoonies, etc) - Feigning Illnesses for Attention

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Dumb question that has probably been asked many times before: why Beauty Parlour tho? Male munchies are almost non-existent? Why?
I think it’s for similar reasons why male anorexics are rare. The pro-ana community and the Munchie community are very similar. Men don’t seem to crave the attention looking feeble and sick gets them. When men are munchies, it seems to be for financial gain. Also, society at large gives less of a shit about men struggling. A pouting hospital selfie isn’t going to elicit the same response.
 
I think it’s for similar reasons why male anorexics are rare. The pro-ana community and the Munchie community are very similar. Men don’t seem to crave the attention looking feeble and sick gets them. When men are munchies, it seems to be for financial gain. Also, society at large gives less of a shit about men struggling. A pouting hospital selfie isn’t going to elicit the same response.
I don't really follow a lot of munchies but it also seems to me that most of them have some kind of daddy issues and want to stay little girls and be taken care of.
 
I think it’s for similar reasons why male anorexics are rare. The pro-ana community and the Munchie community are very similar. Men don’t seem to crave the attention looking feeble and sick gets them. When men are munchies, it seems to be for financial gain. Also, society at large gives less of a shit about men struggling. A pouting hospital selfie isn’t going to elicit the same response.
To add on to this, women are lauded for being delicate little flowers whereas men aren't. Gendered socialisation plays a large part — being smol isn't celebrated when it's men doing it, sort of thing. I hate to bring it back around to it but basically short answer is at least partly 'because patriarchy'.
 
To add on to this, women are lauded for being delicate little flowers whereas men aren't. Gendered socialisation plays a large part — being smol isn't celebrated when it's men doing it, sort of thing. I hate to bring it back around to it but basically short answer is at least partly 'because patriarchy'.
Men are probably more likely to demand real proof before doling out sympathy for their fellow men. I have seen some dudes vlog their terminal cancers, but they all died from it with proof all over the place they weren't bullshiting. Scans showing definite tumors, doctor's visits, surgeries, chemo treatments, cachexia, etc. Women tend to just be more gullible about this I think. There aren't many men who follow these fakers either. It is mostly other women, a good portion of whom also want to munch out.
 
The closest I've seen to male munchies (excluding malingering for gibs) is guys with quite severe depression becoming clumsy. They always injure themselves in weird ways. Like someone who is too depressed to workout suddenly deciding to workout and "whoops I dropped a heavy weight on my leg and it broke". Although I don't think it's for attention, I think it's to have a good excuse for assuming the sick role.
 
Dumb question that has probably been asked many times before: why Beauty Parlour tho? Male munchies are almost non-existent? Why?
Men don't "munchie" but I've seen plenty bitching about how they have every damn thing wrong with them under the sun and still go to work mid heart attack/stroke/diabetic coma (and then smoking/drinking/eating copious amounts of bad shit and not taking medical advice because whiskey and bacon fixes everything).

Guys just do their attention whoring in a different way. Posting selfies of themselves at work constantly with a a bit of a bloodied thumb from a hammer accident and, 'women don't appreciate the things men go through to provide for them, I've still got 6 hours of my shift and I'm bleeding to death' etc etc etc.

No offence to guys in general, just something I've noticed.
 
May be late and slight pl but I have a family member with diagnosed epilepsy (medicated) and developed PNES on top of that, brought on by stress. After their PNES seizure, they're in a similar state to their epileptic seizures. They need a few days to recover from both types and most certainly not faking. (Has had epilepsy for over 30 years and doesn't enjoy it in the slightest).
Just putting that out there. I definitely believe these people are faking, however.
 
May be late and slight pl but I have a family member with diagnosed epilepsy (medicated) and developed PNES on top of that, brought on by stress. After their PNES seizure, they're in a similar state to their epileptic seizures. They need a few days to recover from both types and most certainly not faking. (Has had epilepsy for over 30 years and doesn't enjoy it in the slightest).
Just putting that out there. I definitely believe these people are faking, however.
I think the majority of people here know there are exceptions. Scroll back and you'll see people empathising for people with seizures. The point is that they aren't "true" seizures and are most common with munchies. The reason being I think normal- not internet people, who get stress induced seizures likely don't have a history (usually) so they wouldn't even know what it was they were suffering from. They might even think it's a severe panic attack. (Which... I mean, it is)
 
Men don't "munchie" but I've seen plenty bitching about how they have every damn thing wrong with them under the sun and still go to work mid heart attack/stroke/diabetic coma (and then smoking/drinking/eating copious amounts of bad shit and not taking medical advice because whiskey and bacon fixes everything).

Guys just do their attention whoring in a different way. Posting selfies of themselves at work constantly with a a bit of a bloodied thumb from a hammer accident and, 'women don't appreciate the things men go through to provide for them, I've still got 6 hours of my shift and I'm bleeding to death' etc etc etc.

No offence to guys in general, just something I've noticed.
There's a guy I used to work with (around 40 years old) that would claim shit like "I'm bipolar/ i have bipolar!" (I hate when people say that, learn engrish.) And he also claimed to have OCD and diabeetus. Men certainly fake illnesses, but unlike munchies they don't do it for attention, they do it in order to deflect criticism and make people in authority look like the asshole. Can confirm men don't partake in munching.

-A man
 
They need a few days to recover from both types and most certainly not faking. (Has had epilepsy for over 30 years and doesn't enjoy it in the slightest). [/ISPOILER]
Just putting that out there. I definitely believe these people are faking, however.

One thing epileptics agree on at their super secret meetings. How much they enjoy being epileptic and how fun it is.
 
Men probably just don't take it as far as some of these women do. Men have the same emotional needs as women, their importance just is balanced in a different way. Light munching might be enough for a man to satisfy the emotional need that drives munching in general. If I had to guess why there is a difference between the sexes, I'd go with the fact that late pregnancy and childbirth require women to have people around to look out/take care of them. It makes sense to me that more women than men would wind up with stronger feelings/needs and disordered behavior around the sick role.

I'd also guess a part of that different balance of emotional needs has to do with what women find attractive vs what men find attractive. Imagine the love life of a male rose. But even rose was able to get a BF.
 
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I think it is a lot easier with the way people treat men vs women for women to actually get the attention they desire from munching.
The closest I've seen to male munchies (excluding malingering for gibs) is guys with quite severe depression becoming clumsy. They always injure themselves in weird ways. Like someone who is too depressed to workout suddenly deciding to workout and "whoops I dropped a heavy weight on my leg and it broke". Although I don't think it's for attention, I think it's to have a good excuse for assuming the sick role.
I think men might actually need something wrong physically and obviously wrong with them in order to get the same level of sympathy. Or even they need something wrong with them in order to even ask for that amount of sympathy.

Add in the fact that a lot of women do get legitimate medical problems ignored or dismissed as "anxiety" or "hormone-related" and you end up with it not only being more accepted but almost expected that women will have to push their doctors to get proper treatment. I think the fact that most munchies these days go for GI-related issues plays into that. A man having severe stomach cramps? That will be immediately looked into because it's not normal. A woman getting severe stomach cramps? Eh, maybe it's just a bad period. This means the munchie can then go to another doctor and play up the fact that they were dismissed and get applauded for advocating for herself.
I'd also guess a part of that different balance of emotional needs has to do with what women find attractive vs what men find attractive. Imagine the love life of a male rose. But even rose was able to get a BF.
When a relationship is struggling because of illness it either takes a real strong love to make it through and/or they both need to be getting something out of it. A woman gets fewer kudos for filling in the caretaker role so that might weed out a good portion of relationships that a male munchie might find themselves in. But a man in many ways might seem more attractive to others because of his ability to take care of his poor little wife who is wasting away from her chronic illness.
 
Add in the fact that a lot of women do get legitimate medical problems ignored or dismissed as "anxiety" or "hormone-related" and you end up with it not only being more accepted but almost expected that women will have to push their doctors to get proper treatment. I think the fact that most munchies these days go for GI-related issues plays into that. A man having severe stomach cramps? That will be immediately looked into because it's not normal. A woman getting severe stomach cramps? Eh, maybe it's just a bad period. This means the munchie can then go to another doctor and play up the fact that they were dismissed and get applauded for advocating for herself.
My thyroid had developed a nodule, and I was losing my hair, gaining weight, I couldn't lie on my back without gagging on something in my throat, everything low thyroid entails. My female PCP referred me to an endocrinologist, and seemed very worried. The male endocrinologist did blood work, a biopsy, and at the end told me to lose weight and see if it helps. Just lose weight, and he'd see me in six months.

So I found another doctor.

The second endocrinologist said first had marked a thyroid disease on my chart, and asked why I changed doctors. I told him I didn't know that was on my chart.

I just wonder how different would it have been if I was a man. The hairloss and weight wouldn't have been a problem, but would he still tell me to lose weight? Would the issue of gagging when I laid on my back have been more focussed on?

tl;dr I'm still bitter
 
When a relationship is struggling because of illness it either takes a real strong love to make it through and/or they both need to be getting something out of it. A woman gets fewer kudos for filling in the caretaker role so that might weed out a good portion of relationships that a male munchie might find themselves in. But a man in many ways might seem more attractive to others because of his ability to take care of his poor little wife who is wasting away from her chronic illness.
I'm just talking about internal motivation. Munching making a man less attractive due to loss of social esteem is going to make munching less rewarding. The whole key to the frail, sickly princess is that they can still be attractive/desirable. How many of our munchies post "disability can be sexy content", apparently oblivious to the fact it's only sexy when the person was already conventionally attractive.

Not a response to you, but Faking illness to get out of responsibilities/obligations (disability benefits, etc) is malingering, not munching. Deliberately breaking a bone because you can't handle what's going on in your life is fucked up, but it's not the same.

So assuming men actually don't munch as much or as far as women (as opposed to not posting on social media about it), they either have less of a need or they get less of a reward. I'm willing to bet there are a fair number of men who feel like nobody gives a shit about them so they go to the ER saying they have chest pain. They just don't try to turn themselves into professional patients for the sake of being professional patients.

tl;dr I'm still bitter

Being a man, when I tipped over from being overweight to obese, every doctor I saw told me I was obese and needed to lose weight. Whether it was relevant or not. Urologist told me I was fat, neurosurgeon told me I was fat, gp told me I was fat. They put it in my list of health conditions on mychart, and every after visit summary had tips about obesity and weight loss. Do they do that to women?

Edit: like a BMI of 30.5
 
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