I don’t see how leaking tear ducts is equivalent to possibly damaging your work equipment. Violent action is, by definition, voluntary movement. Watering eyes is not. I assume we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one, though.
Agreed. To disagree, I mean. I mean, yes, we agree to disagree.
You might be right; my point earlier in the thread was that the involuntary nature was completely new to me. It doesn’t really matter if it’s a woman thing or an “everyone but me” thing - it’s still new.
To answer your question, I honestly can’t think of any time I’ve ever involuntarily cried. Even as a child, I cried more often and more things seemed worth crying over, but not against my will. From pre-school to 12th grade I don`t recall ever once crying in school, for instance. I choked back some tears a few times but that’s it. Forget crying at work, never even tempted.
Having given it some thought, the whole idea of involuntary emotional outbursts is alien to me. As a more traditionally ‘masculine’ example, I don’t think I’ve ever involuntarily shouted at someone either. If I’m angry at someone, I can’t instantly stop being angry, but I can certainly keep from yelling or shouting at them.
So am I a normal guy or some sort of a robot?
I don’t know, but the way you’re talking about this is just as alien to me as what I experience is to you, I think. I mean, I don’t cry very often at all, but when I do, it isn’t because I decide ‘this funeral would be an appropriate time to cry, so… commence.’ I just start like making a weird trembly frowny face, and then my eyes are wet, and then I’m crying, and then I stop. Just like on TV!
Yelling is such an entirely different thing, to me, that the comparison is almost incomprehensible. I mean, to yell you have to like engage the muscles and form words or at least decide what kind of shrieking noise to make, right, so yelling is pretty much by definition voluntary. I’m tempted to say of course I don’t involuntarily shout at people, because that would be crazy. I’ve also never been “tempted” to cry under any circumstances, and no, I’ve never cried at school or at work or on the bus or anything. But crying is just kind of some shit that happens, not a strategy. A better comparison would be laughter, I think.
Who cries on purpose? I don’t choose to cry, I hate crying, why would I do it voluntarily? Sometimes it just happens. Not very often, thankfully, but when it does–believe me, I’m already doing everything in my power to stop. I don’t see how you could think “Hey, this seems like an appropriate time to cry, so here goes!” and then actually do it.
I think you may all be right. I guess there really isn’t anything anyone can do about tears just *coming. *
Tell me about it. I’m one of those whose tears typically are a sign of extreme frustration; nothing like having a fruitless, desperate argument and having farking TEARS coming out, gah!
I’ve managed to only cry at work a couple of times in my life, and made it to the bathroom in both instances, but it’s just SO embarrassing. Ugh. What’s worse is that every time I cry, even for a few minutes, my face gets all red and puffy and I look like I’ve been bawling for days. Definitely not something I would do in public if I could will myself not to.
Not only this, but I am physically unable to force myself to cry. I just can’t do it. If the tears are gonna come, they’re gonna come on their own terms, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.
I remember hearing, several years ago, about a study done about something like this. I heard about it on the radio, so I don’t know if I can scare up a cite or not, but the findings were that women felt more like people were negatively judging them when they cried in public. Men, by contrast, felt more like people felt sorry for them whenever they cried in public.
All I ask is that if I DO cry in public/at the office, try to realize that it IS an involuntary reaction, and that I’m trying like heck to stop. And trust me, I feel just as awkward and stupid about it as you do.
I cry extremely easily. I usually was able to blame it on “allergies”. But I was usually able to go to the bathroom, or to the back room if we weren’t to busy.
Don’t get me wrong – I wasn’t bawling everyday. But occassionally if I did start crying, I couldn’t just stop. It was embarassing, but what can you do?
Not me, at least not since I was a child. The closest I get to crying is when watching emotional scenes in a movie, tell me a relation has died though, and I’ll be upset but no crying. I’m sure I’d be a flood of tears if someone very close to me died though.
I think it’s the other way around. For some people, like me and apparently Fuzzy Dunlop, its more like “this is a situation where I could start to cry if I don’t suppress the feeling, but I’m going to choose to suppress it.”
In other words, there’s no conscious decision to cry, just a choice of whether or not an outward display of the current emotion will be permitted. The emotion itself isn’t voluntary, but the reaction to it can be controlled, at least to some extent.
I don’t think I’ve openly cried since I was a young child. The idea of wanting to stop and not being able to is quite alien to me as well. Maybe I’m a Vulcan…
Hell, no, completely involuntary, at least for me. I can count the times I’ve cried in front of people after age 3 on the fingers of one hand and have fingers left; every time, I was so angry I couldn’t stop it, couldn’t speak and could barely breathe.
I know one instance of a woman who burst into tears out of fear and, seeing it made things go her way, stopped trying to stop it and moved to controlling it instead - but the bursting into tears part was involuntary.
You know what I really hate, is when I’m quite upset and holding it together and totally coping, and then someone comes along and is nice to me, and the tears start. So embarrassing.
But my goodness, there is no time in a professional setting when I would think that crying is a reasonable thing to do. (Nor yelling.) That would be completely involuntary, and very embarrassing. I hate crying even when it’s considered appropriate; public emotion is awful to me.
That’s ridiculous. Tears don’t just “come”, you have to be in a certain emotional state to cry. And if you let yourself slip into such an emotional state so easily, you really don’t have much self-control.
Nobody else controls your emotions but you. Don’t give me some bullshit about “oh but someone/something MADE me angry/sad, and I just HAD to cry as a result”.
I don’t think something that’s happened 3 times in 39 years qualifies as “so easily.”
Maybe I wasn’t speaking to you but all the women responding to the thread that they are constantly breaking down in tears at work.
Damn, my work must be like Candyland compared to the places some of you guys work. In nine years I’ve never seen a co-worker cry, and it’s mostly women here. The only crying I see is from the customers (it’s a funeral home).
I’m certain that specific behavior happens less frequently than women crying in the office.
Of course, the general class of similar unprofessional behavior by men may well be of greater frequency than crying by women.
But inasmuch as this thread seems to be about crying in the workplace, it seems pretty safe to me to say that women do it more than men do.
How that’s relevant, I’m not sure.
I never characterized it in such grand terms and I think it’s rather rude of you to suggest I did.