# What's your weepy weakness? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 6, 2006, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-weepy-weakness/363318 "2006-07-06T03:47:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![rinni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f6c823/32.png) [@rinni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rinni)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2006, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-weepy-weakness/363318/21 "2006-07-07T13:59:55Z")
Jeez, I cry at everything. Heroics and/or noble acts. Like, for example (spoiler for Cars) When Lightning McQueen is about to win first place, but then notices that the old champion, King, is damaged and can’t drive, so he sacrifices first place to go back and push King over the finish line. Lord of the Rings: “I’ll carry you.” And “You bow to no one.” Things that were quoted to me at certain times by someone I value will cause tears whenever I see them repeated by their original source. Two examples: - Lord of the Rings: “I would have gone with you until the end. Into the very fires of Mordor.” (May not be exact.) When he says that line, I remember when it was said to me. - The Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows”: “If you should ever leave me, though life would still go on, believe me, the world would show nothing to me, so what good would living do me?” Pokemon, because of the love and respect that Ash/Satoshi shows for his Pokemon at all times. And how even the bad guys have hearts of gold sometimes. I can’t watch an episode of Pokemon without tears. Animals. They don’t even have to do anything, but sometimes the cuteness will bring tears to my eyes. (I originally typed “bring teats to my eyes”, heavens no!) And if one suffers or dies I’ll cry more. Family members dying. You don’t know how many times I’ve cried at posts on this very board. I don’t often post this in the threads, because it’s not about me, but now you know. Parents and children reconnecting. Romantic love. Oddly enough, I cry at movies, TV, books and posts online way more than I do at things which actually happen to me. People interacting with me on an ordinary level will usually find me to be a bit cold and unemotional, until they see me tear up when talking about a movie or book or some dumb commercial that struck me the wrong way. I try to avoid watching movies I haven’t seen a thousand times with people who are not used to this. The main exception to this is that I will cry if I see one of my friends crying. I will stop now, lest someone call a mental health hotline on me. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2006, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-weepy-weakness/363318/22 "2006-07-07T14:43:38Z")
Tales of heroic or extremely dedicated animals, especially when they die in service. Like [Gelert](http://www.red-dragon-wales.com/MythsandLegends/Gelert.htm) and [Hachiko](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hachiko). ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2006, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-weepy-weakness/363318/23 "2006-07-07T15:01:43Z")
I couldn’t care less about dogs, but little kids get to me, and grieving old people. ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2006, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-weepy-weakness/363318/24 "2006-07-07T15:04:10Z")
[QUOTE=rinni] - Lord of the Rings: “I would have gone with you until the end. Into the very fires of Mordor.” (May not be exact.) When he says that line, I remember when it was said to me. [/QUOTE] Someone said that to you? Man, you have cool friends. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2006, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-weepy-weakness/363318/25 "2006-07-07T15:04:19Z")
[QUOTE=Lama Pacos] My weepy weakness is sacrifice. You know, people doing things that are really hard for them for the sake of another person. For some weird reason, this hits me the hardest when the sacrifice involves an object. Sacrificing your life to save someone? Whatever. Sacrificing the chipped yo-yo that momma gave you in the opening montage? Kleenex time. [/QUOTE] I think I can explain why that is, **Lama**. When someone sacrifices his life to save another, presumably you think either that the sacrificer is no longer around to suffer (if you don’t believe in an afterlife) or that he’s earned a spot in the choir invisible (if you do). But when a person gives up an irreplaceable object of purely personal value out of greater love for another person, then you know that person will continue to suffer undeservedly. ---
**Author:** ![Walkabout](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/46a35a/32.png) [@Walkabout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walkabout)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2006, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-weepy-weakness/363318/26 "2006-07-07T15:15:15Z")
When someone loses someone or something they love. If someone dies in a book or a movie it doesn’t really affect me all that much, but when they cut to their mom or wife or boyfriend or whoever grieving for that person, I just lose it. It’s not the death, it’s the loss. ---
**Author:** ![melondeca](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5a626/32.png) [@melondeca](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/melondeca)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2006, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-weepy-weakness/363318/27 "2006-07-07T23:33:00Z")
Hearing _Taps_ played will make me a bit misty but the big one for me is reading **E. A. P.**'s short story, _The Black Cat_. Makes me cry like a little girl with a skinned knee. ---
**Author:** ![Adoptamom\_II](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Adoptamom\_II](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Adoptamom_II)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2006, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-weepy-weakness/363318/28 "2006-07-08T01:26:45Z")
Rascal Flatts song “Skin” about a girl with leukemia who loses her hair on the day of her prom and when her date/boyfriend picks her up for the dance he has shaved his head to match hers. I have goosebumps just typing this. I’m 44 years old and have had to turn around, go home and fix my makeup because the song came on the radio on my way to work. Also, the movie “The Notebook”. I sobbed like a baby at the end of that movie, as did two of my daughters who watched it with me. A greater gift was given to me when one of my daughters turned to me after the movie and said “That’s you and dad - that’s the kind of love y’all have”. :::swallowing the lump in my throat::: ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2006, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-weepy-weakness/363318/29 "2006-07-08T04:20:51Z")
[QUOTE=WVmom] When someone loses someone or something they love. If someone dies in a book or a movie it doesn’t really affect me all that much, but when they cut to their mom or wife or boyfriend or whoever grieving for that person, I just lose it. It’s not the death, it’s the loss. [/QUOTE] Yeah. I can’t watch Forrest Gump without breaking down during the scene where he is standing by Jenny’s grave and talking to her. ---
**Author:** ![Tracy\_Lord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@Tracy\_Lord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tracy_Lord)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2006, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-weepy-weakness/363318/30 "2006-07-08T06:46:04Z")
Positive impulses. There was a Kodak commercial a while back that featured a grandkid finding an old picture of his grandmother playing softball when she was younger, Kodak-izing it, framing it, and giving it to her. I choked up and was crying in about 0.3 seconds. The desire to do something unexpected and meaningful for someone else – that gets me. “It’s A Wonderful Life”, which is my big All-Time Weepy Weakness Movie, is full of moments like that. ---
**Author:** ![tashabot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tashabot/32/6250_2.png) [@tashabot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tashabot)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2006, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-weepy-weakness/363318/31 "2006-07-08T07:18:52Z")
[QUOTE=melondeca] Hearing _Taps_ played will make me a bit misty [/QUOTE] Oh, lord. Amazing Grace played on bagpipes does it for me, which made my four years of NJROTC hell. ~Tasha ---
**Author:** ![meenie7](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7993a0/32.png) [@meenie7](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/meenie7)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2006, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-weepy-weakness/363318/32 "2006-07-08T07:34:08Z")
[QUOTE=Max Torque] Tales of heroic or extremely dedicated animals, especially when they die in service. Like [Gelert](http://www.red-dragon-wales.com/MythsandLegends/Gelert.htm) and [Hachiko](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hachiko). [/QUOTE] Oh, man, I’d never read the story of Hachiko before, and I’m sitting here at my desk whimpering and crying uncontrollably. I just think of how sad that poor dog must have been…“Where is he? When’s he going to come out and meet me?” Oh, God, I was going to write more internal monologue for the dog but I can’t…I just keep crying… So, I guess animals do it for me as far as weepiness too. There was a commercial on TV a few years ago (it must be at least six years ago or so now…) for Iams dog food, where it shows a little girl with a little Irish setter puppy, and then the dog grows up as she does, until at the end it was a young woman right around my age at the time and an old dog, and I had to get down on the floor and hug my beloved dog, which we got when I was 6 and who was the best dog in the whole world (he died five years ago, when I was 21, and oh no I’m crying again agghhhh) ---
**Author:** ![rinni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f6c823/32.png) [@rinni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rinni)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2006, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-weepy-weakness/363318/33 "2006-07-08T07:50:10Z")
[QUOTE=Priceguy] Someone said that to you? Man, you have cool friends. [/QUOTE] Yeah, I do. He was my boyfriend/soulmate, and we were breaking up, mutually decided but still very heartbreaking. We are still best friends, but we live on opposite sides of the country. I’d take a bullet for him, I’d give him a kidney, and if I ever have the good fortune to live close to him again I will not give it up. It probably doesn’t sound important to anyone else, but it really was. Is. Oh, another story that makes me cry - [Greyfriars Bobby](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greyfriars_Bobby), the story of the Skye terrier who sat by his master’s grave for years.. Tried to read the Hachiko story and got as far as “faithful dog” before crying. Haha. ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2006, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-weepy-weakness/363318/34 "2006-07-08T18:05:12Z")
From _Jesus Christ Superstar_: “Die if you want to, you innocent puppet!” (cue main theme) I dunno why, but that’s a very powerful musical moment for me. And I’m not even religious. Other things sort of get me down, such as in my job when I come across the report of an otherwise-healthy 40- or 50-year-old who’s got some kind of inoperable cancer, or an infant with a dislocated elbow, or a woman who’s complaint is a black eye and claims on the report that it was from “falling down the stairs.” I don’t cry over those. But that song makes me tear up. Go figure. ---
**Author:** ![Indygrrl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@Indygrrl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indygrrl)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2006, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-weepy-weakness/363318/35 "2006-07-08T18:53:44Z")
I was just reading this thinking, “Damn, I am made of stone, none of this crap makes me cry,” and then I remembered that I teared up during a SOAP OPERA the other day. haha. Seriously, though, it was a really sad deathbed scene. ---
**Author:** ![WaryEri](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ea666f/32.png) [@WaryEri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WaryEri)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2006, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-weepy-weakness/363318/36 "2006-07-08T19:39:28Z")
[QUOTE=Max Torque] Tales of heroic or extremely dedicated animals, especially when they die in service. Like [Gelert](http://www.red-dragon-wales.com/MythsandLegends/Gelert.htm) and [Hachiko](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hachiko). [/QUOTE] I read through the whole Hachiko story without so much as a twinge, but the moment I saw “Jurassic Bark” mentioned at the end, cue the misty eyes. ---
**Author:** ![Lightray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightray/32/391_2.png) [@Lightray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightray)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2006, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-weepy-weakness/363318/37 "2006-07-09T02:38:04Z")
[QUOTE=WaryEri] I read through the whole Hachiko story without so much as a twinge, but the moment I saw “Jurassic Bark” mentioned at the end, cue the misty eyes. [/QUOTE] Well, crud. I’d missed _that_ waterworks-trigger reference. “Jurassic Bark” just wasn’t fair! You’re expecting Futurama hijinks, then – pow! let the crying begin. _sniffle_ ---
**Author:** ![Crawlspace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Crawlspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crawlspace)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2006, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-weepy-weakness/363318/38 "2006-07-09T03:52:18Z")
[QUOTE=SurrenderDorothy] I’ll second dogs. I cried myself to sleep the night I finished “ **Where The Red Fern Grows** ” [/QUOTE] Excellent call! For me it’s the loyal and/or suffering dog. (most animals will do though) Kids being forced to mature much faster than appropriate (eg. Party of Five, the first season or so at least.) The blue collar/farming/rural family that’s struggling to get by, but making the most of what they have. An alcoholic/addict that really wants to get their life in order but just can’t quite get there. Selflessly romantic gestures. “Touch of Grey” by the Grateful Dead; if I haven’t heard it in a while, I will nearly lose it when Jerry sings “I know the rent is in arrears, The dog has not been fed in years, It’s even worse than it appears, But it’s alright” ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2006, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-weepy-weakness/363318/39 "2006-07-09T07:15:38Z")
> [@shizaru](#): > > …and anything that hits the right patriotic chords for me. I’m in the military but I’m not always in agreement with the government (hell, I am hardly ever in agreement with them). But a friend of mine heard the song “American Soldier” and we both got weepy. When I was in the military I definitely got chills up my spine when we saluted the flag. I’m about as much in disagreement with current American policy as you can get on almost everything from education to foreign affairs to prescription law, but the flag still moves me because of the understanding and appreciation I’d gained for everything it stands for. In the midst of the ridiculous wars we’ve started and/or joined in the Middle and Far East, we often forget that we were the nation that taught Europe how to be free, who sent our strongest young men to help destroy heinous political oppression’s poster child. As I noted in another thread, the only other thing that gets me weak is great sports moments. Seeing the US get kicked around in the World Cup was jarring but I think I would be even more of a mess if we won the thing. I’m actually a “happy crier” rather than a “sad crier” in sports; losing isn’t really a big deal for me after some of the teams I’ve followed (see above) but I really have to choke 'em back when my teams have success or show flashes of brilliance on the big stage. > [@tashabot](#): > > Courage. Not brainless idiocy, but actual courage. You hear the “Let’s Roll” stories from 9/11, the stories of people saving other people, sometimes at the cost of their own lives, the scenes in the movies where people don’t hesitate to stand up for what’s right, be that saving someone else’s life or just telling someone they’re wrong. Those always get to me. I met two WWII veterans at medical on Lackland AFB in Texas and I could’ve broken down in tears right in front of them if I hadn’t been wearing BDUs and combat boots (and known that I would get my shit ruined for losing my military bearing). I had no idea what to say to them. I didn’t get a word out. There was nothing to say that could sum up what their courage meant to me and my family (I’m Jewish). I hope they understood. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Jones](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Cat\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Jones)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2006, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-weepy-weakness/363318/40 "2006-07-09T19:44:30Z")
Threads like this … Separation - especially parents and children, the “Baby of mine” moment from Dumbo ? When his mum’s chains are too short to manage to see him but he snuggles in her trunk? Just can’t cope with that at all, teary eyed here and now. Stories of vetrans and their partners - like the old lady who visits her boyfriend’s/husband’s grave in France every year. The ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall the evening before Remeberance Sunday gets me very emotional - ex-servicemen and women file in and march into position, serving men and women, service widows (including, now those younger than me who have lost husband’s in the Gulf and later conflicts). At one point, during a minute’s silence red paper poppy petals are released from the ceiling and float down onto the bowed heads and settle on shoulders … so so sad, yet magnificent too. Animals in pain or mistreated. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-weepy-weakness/363318.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-weepy-weakness/363318.md?page=3)