I hate to cry, so I’ve never cried on purpose. I definitely can’t make myself cry. I divide my crying into two categories: personal emotional pain, and sympathy pain. I hardly ever cry over personal emotional pain, but when I do I usually stop myself before I even realize what I’m doing. Every now and then I’ll let myself have what Mom would call “a good cry,” but it’s always deliberate (and always in private).
Sympathy pain would include crying when I hear that a friend had a miscarriage, when the abused puppy on Animal Cops doesn’t make it, when the troubled teen movie character is reunited with his gruff-but-loving father, etc. That kind of crying happens a little more often, and I don’t feel the need to stifle it as much; for some reason it’s more acceptable to me.