What's something that men think is impressive, but really isn't?

My first boyfriend's Mum said his brother was a "real man" when she found out he'd got his girlfriend pregnant, who he'd only been seeing a few weeks! No! A "real man" would have used contraception so early in a relationship. Getting a woman pregnant is probably the easiest thing most men can do, and is in no way impressive. Being a proper partner and father in the longer term is FAR MORE impressive than a couple of minutes squirting! Needless to say, boyfriend's brother ran for the hills as soon as baby was born despite claiming he wanted to be a good "Dad", and his poor girlfriend had to chase him constantly for money he owed her and even remind him every year when it was his son's birthday etc!! His mother constantly thought he was a "real man" though - utterly deluded.

You beat me to it with sleeve tattoos. Neck ones like Peter Wicks’s ones are even worse.

A big cock. Maybe I'm weird but I'd say most women are not that keen on a big cock and more likely to find it uncomfortable during sex. I'd much rather have sex with someone who is good at oral sex or generally knows how to make me orgasm, which is definitely not going to be through a massive cock doing PIV.

It’s talking about tattoos that is off putting. Dp has 3, they are great (though not ‘impressive’ as such).

Men doing a splashy crawl in the slow lane when I'm doing my OAP very slow laps with my glasses on.

Also, their "wild past".
Can't tell you how many times I (as someone with a multi-continent chequered past) has had to sit there and listen to a really animated story about this one summer a guy spent in Spain when he went surfing and slept with a Spanish girl. Rock n roll buddy.

Do you wear jeans when you're exercising?

Yes, this. And the ENDLESS MANSPLAINING 😖

The way they develop hyper specialist knowledge of a subject and then make that their personality. Like cant you just have a passing interest in something?

Oh yes. My famous mac and cheese. Apparently everyone who's ever tried it has been raving about it for years afterwards. I must have had COVID when I tasted it, because to me it was just flavoured cardboard.

Tattoos. Some of the middle aged men I work with have them in lieu of a personality. The CEO got a full sleeve recently, and the tattoo love has trickled downwards.

Anything they do in the kitchen. Toast, washing up, boiling kettle, heating up anything from a tin. All of it, more impressive than conducting the Berlin Philharmonic.

I was immediately going to say 'their penis'. Men as a sex class seem inordinately impressed by their own penises. I've never found them all that interesting- useful and fun to play with on occasion, yes. But not that interesting.

Also- being a member of a yacht club. I was invited to a birthday lunch last year and was sat by a man who brayed non-stop about being a member of this club. Right at the end as we were leaving he said 'Oh i hope you enjoyed your special visit to our little club' and I just replied 'Oh, we are members too, actually'. It's honestly just not that special- not least when we all Live By The Actual Sea.

Definitely cars. And I say that as a ‘car person’ myself. So many men view nice cars entirely in terms of image & status. They would never consider driving a Mazda or a Skoda, no matter how objectively good it is. But they would quite happily drive a Mercedes-Benz, despite it being objectively a piece of junk with a crappy 1.3 Renault engine. 🙄

Taking and posting a wired amount of selfies

Flexing their muscles.

Their opinions.

How about just a polite but not overly effusive "that's right!"?

As if to a toddler who's told you 2+2=4 or something, and you want to be encouraging but are also a bit busy with something else...

Spot on. And all that theatrics about cycling clothes, I do triathlons and most of the clothes are meant to be functional, not fashionable.