I am not much of a crier, but I’ll admit I’ve broken down on the subway a few times. Music on my Discman (yes, way back) or iPod was always the trigger – particularly sad songs that I’d been listening to when people close to me died. I tried to hide my face, mostly, if only to keep people from thinking I was going to throw myself on the tracks or something. I’m not sure what I would have done had someone tried to comfort me – probably been embarrassed, unless maybe it was a particularly kind-looking old woman. A tissue would have been fine.
I am surely over my limit for citing Sex and the City on the SDMB (especially since I’m not even a huge fan of the show), but there was an episode where Miranda’s mother dies and she breaks down in a dressing room. The sales clerk offers her a hug, which she refuses before breaking down and allowing the older woman to clutch her to her chest. It is a particularly sweet moment.
Crying in public is even more embarrassing than loudly and aromatically farting in public. I’m going to have to go with a Miss Manners-style solution and say that I’d do nothing. Doing or saying anything only calls attention to the source of the embarassment. So, the only polite thing to do is to pretend that nothing is awry.
I think offering a tissue is great, but I’ve never understood the idea of giving a crying person a glass of water. Why would they (more than any other random person) want water? Tissue, yes. Water… huh?
I’m a welfare caseworker, so this happens to me on a regular basis. I generally use a generous dose of empathy and concern, and point out the box of kleenex on my desk. If someone’s been abused, I make sure they know it’s not their fault.
Seems to happen to you a lot. Perhaps you are just too beautiful/handsome for regular people to handle.
Put me in with the people who would ask if they were ok. I can’t stand to see a girl crying. The “damsel in distress” gets me every time. Now if it were a guy… I dunno how I’d react.
I would certainly feel bad for the person…but ultimately I would leave them alone. I’m just usually not good in those situations, and if I’m sittin there bawling my eyes out, I would want to be left alone
I just remembered…when I was crying in the hospital hallway, this man ducked in the bathroom, came out with tissues, handed them to me unobtrusively, and walked away. It was a kind gesture, and much appreciated.
And yet when I try to explain that to people they call me a narcissist. Thank you for understanding…
Exactly.
I think also being male it’s different. If a woman comes up to you and says “are you okay” and gives you tissue it seems kind, but for a guy to do it it could seem… other.
Once I came upon a male co-worker who was crying. That’s REALLLLY awkward. I didn’t know him very well myself, but I knew he was good friends with another co-worker, ‘Glenda’, so I whispered it in her ear and she tended to him. (It turned out he’d just learned a good friend of his had been killed in a car wreck.) He actually thanked me later for telling her.
Some of you will remember Persephone, who was a Doper until she died a few years ago. Cristi was a real-life friend of mine and I found out about her death when I checked my text messages on the bus home from work. I had five messages and for a moment I was like, “Awesome! I’m popular today!” Until I read the first one. Well, I kinda fell apart on the bus. I wasn’t wracked with sobs, but I was really, really shocked, and crying.
After the bus, I had to take the train, and while I was waiting on the platform, a woman who had been on my bus came up to me and asked me if I was doing okay, she’d seen me crying. I told her no, my friend had died. And she was really sympathetic and told me that she she was really sorry to hear that.
If someone’s been abused, I make sure they know it’s not their fault.