[hijack] I swear gobear if I weren’t married and you were available… I guess I’ll just have to be content with saying “Your my kinda man. A REAL man!!” 
[/blatent hero worship]
OK, I wanna be in the bar when you call a 6’4", 250 lb Norseman brickthrower a sissy for crying.
If I rolled my eyes any harder, my optic nerve would snap and gouge a crater in my monitor screen.
This one deserves another go round. Words to live by.
PS: Good posts, Cervaise.
I don’t think it’s a sign of weakness for a man to cry, but I think it’s kind of pathetic in the middle of a mall. That goes for both sexes. Usually, you are aware of the fact that you’re getting ready to break down and you can go somewhere appropriate.
The food court incident would have made me uncomfortable as well, but I wouldn’t have ran to the bathroom! That’s just mean.
Also: msmith, you are cracking me up.
At the death of a friend. Nobody is saying there is anything wrong with that. Was Jesus in the middle of a bazaar at the time? Was he in the middle of giving the sermon on the mount? No. He did it in an appropriate way.
All that aside, I fail to be moved by the “Jesus was a real man” argument. First off, didn’t he die a virgin? Or did he hook up with Mary? I hope it was the latter, because 30-something virgins don’t cut it in my “relate to the human experience” scale.
Yup. They acted like little boys, what with the raping and pillaging. Real men respect other people.
I remember the story of the teenage boy who went to catch a ball in NYC. He jumped to get it and landed, chin first, onto a metal fence post. So there he was, trapped on a spike. Emergency services show up and try to cut the fence to free him, but he started screaming when the vibrations of the saw rattled his jaw. So they used blow-torches to cut the metal. Despite the searing heat he felt, it was better than the vibrations. About a week later, as he was being released from the hospital, he looked at the camera and said “but I didn’t cry.” You’re right…what a sissy that kid was.
But you could easily argue that you are talking about emotional pain, not physical. So, is it okay for a man to cry at work? What if his boss yells at him?
There is some credibility to the theory that hormones play a role in making women more prone to tears. The fact that these hormones are in women and not men is one reason why it is much less acceptable for a man to cry. (Reports of transexuals bawling for no reason after beginnning hormone treatment is my only evidence for this, and I have no cite whatsoever.)
Hey, I’ll pimp-slap his whiney crybaby ass all over that bar. People with tears in their eyes can’t see clearly. It’s that much sweeter that the outer manifestation of his lack of masculine self-control is what will make said pimp-slapping even easier.
“Husker du muthafucka?” slap!
I love you scumpup. 
Out of everything said thus far, I think I have to go in agreement with Indygrrl.
I don’t have a serious problem with folks crying. Cry at a funeral, or when your dog dies, or when you discover your dream home is infested with termites and various portals to a Hell dimension.
Hell, I cried in the theater during the first five minutes of “Saving Private Ryan.”
I will not be found sitting in a crowded mall weeping and sobbing over top a cold burger.
If my buddy tells me his wife/girlfriend of a long time is leaving him and he needs a friend, with a tear in his eye, I’ll pat him on the shoulder and offer to buy him a beer. If we are in a very public place and he’s making with the waterworks like he’s in some bad comedy film, I’d try to get him the hell out of there for a more private location.
It’s possible to show emotion and emotional anguish without displaying to the entire world that you are a crippled wreck.
Anyone want to start collecting money for Scumpup to go visit Magnus Samuellsson (sp)? World’s Strongest Man at least twice that I can recall…
He’ll be need to change that title to “World’s Strongest Pimp-Slapped Crybaby.”
Slap! "
How’d you like that, musscle-boy?
Here! I’ll give you something to REALLY cry over!"
Slap!-Slap!-Slap!
Mr. Ujest cries every Sunday.
When he’ s watching the Lions.
**
His “heroes” also behaved little better then children. Agamemnon and Achilles pop immediately to mind. How many Greeks died because of their stubborn pride? Oops, this is about crying.
I don’t remember a whole lot of blubbering on the part of the men in the Iliad. Achilles cries when his best pal Patroclus is killed and of course Priam does the same when Hector dies. That’s quite a bit different then crying at the local food court isn’t it?
**
In general I wouldn’t cry in public simply because such personal emotions are private.
Marc
C’mon, people, really . . . Can’t we get past these gender stereotypes already? It’s 2003 for cryin’ out loud. Men and women are human beings and experience emotion. It’s dangerous to send men the message that showing emotions in healthy ways (crying, moping, etc.) is weak, as men are forced to release their emotions through “manly” means like anger and violence. If you want to surround yourself with “real men” that would rather beat the crap out of someone than mope a little while, be my guest.
No, it’s not. I had to teach myself not to cry in order to avoid being teased. Hormones didn’t break that training on their own, although it did make it easier to make the effort to set it aside.
Men (and boys) don’t cry because if they do, they get teased or beaten. It doesn’t have all that much to do with hormones.
I’m crying in my office right now. Thanks a whole hell of a lot, ms mith and scumpup.
I can’t think of any reason I’d cry (esp. sob) in public, save for the death of a significant person in my life. If for some inexplicable reason I needed to cry, I’d excuse myself to cry in a more private place.
Leaving your blubbering friend in the middle of a mall, however, is just bad form, man.
I’m sorry, we stopped serving breakfast 5 minutes ago.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! tear
I think you are refering to Magnus Ver Magnusson. And I don’t care how strong he is. There’s just something unseemly about a giant man weeping like Baby Huey.
No, it is not ok for a man to cry in public.
Nor is it okay for a woman to cry in public.
You can cry among friends or family if you want and if they will tolerate it, but keep it out of the bank lobby, the park, and the mall. Outdoors, restrict it to the graveside, or isolated mountain canyons, where it won’t travel far.
Only children get a pass, as they don’t understand how disturbing it is.
As a Christian, I’m a man not bound by rules! I’m free, thanks to the Lord’s gift of mercy,a nd that means I can do like Jesus and weep at things like the death of a dear friend, or the beauty of a song like "The Old Rugged Cross. I am not bound by some rules that will probably change in 100 years, I can talk about myf eelings. I do not drink or smoke or anything else because I am in touch with my own insecurity that comes from being handicapped (low vision, bad hearing, etc., all congenital). And yet, despite all this, I am an attorney, and wept tears of happiness a little at passing the Bar. i didn’t cry the first time when I missed by 7 points, I just became determined to do better next time, and I did.
If your friend is broken hearted, then he should cry, thugh really loud crying is best done over in a quiet place where he and a good friend (you can be forgiven) can just talk and such. I weep when I see a happy ending at times, or something like that. I have cried with a client who was just about to lose her spouse, for whom I’d done an emergency will, becuase I cared about that person.
I am convinced that when we shed our tears at the altar to the Lord, He takes our burdens and sheds many more for us, but those initial tears must be shed, so we can get things off of our chests.
Crybaby, whimpering tears are not good. But, everyone needs to shed tears of remorse, or grief. Those are healthy. And, I praise God I am able to shed them. Freely.
Moderator’s note:
You’re relatively new, Sezme, so maybe you aren’t aware of forum rules. IMHO is for discussion, “debate lite”, as it were. The focus is on the idea, not the poster. The only forum where name-calling is permitted is The BBQ Pit. Please do not do this again.
And let this serve as a reminder to everyone else, too. No flaming here.
Actually this thread is going rancid. I’m moving it over to The Pit, hamsters permitting.
TVeblen,
IMHO mod