And the end of Field of Dreams.
i’m not a woman but sometimes i wish i were so i could cry.
just yesterday the lettuce on my sandwich got soggy.
“I’ll give ya somethin to cry about.”
I am 65 and have noticed the older I get the more often a movie will bring a tear to my eye. Someone suggested it is because my testosterone levels are dropping. Kind of made sense.
Typically, if a guy’s crying around me, it’s my fault. So I usually feel bad - ashamed of what I’ve done, sad because I don’t want the guy to be upset/hurt, etc. However, if they’re crying over some random thing that isn’t major (and isn’t because of me) then I do think a little less of them for being weak. I think the same for girls, too, though.
For some context: my sister got mad at me once because I didn’t cry at our grandpa’s funeral. It’s not like I wasn’t sad - I just didn’t cry. I don’t like to be upset in public. That also reminds me… One time, my students asked why they’d never seen me cry in class. Makes me wonder what their other teachers have been doing 
I know that you are correct that people consider it a sign of weakness, but that just sucks. Because sometimes, you just can’t help it. The tears just spring to your eyes and you can’t do anything about it. It sucks worse when the OPPOSITE of weakness is going on inside. In other words, a moment of steely resolve overcomes you and you make a decision at work to stick up for yourself at a crucial time, and you are scared to death, but you are mustering your courage and going for it… Damn, it sucks to have tears appear at a moment like that. Happened to me at work once. I never got over it.
ETA: Kayaker has me laughing it up over here.
See, stories like this can tug at my heart strings. I can either let myself cry a little over it or hold it back. Regardless, I can’t help but feel some emotion course through my body as I read it. Its similar to a lot of sad stories. For example, I cried just a little when I watched Shindlers List.
I’m not sure what it would take for me to bawl my eyes out. I haven’t done that since I was a kid.
Yeah, really. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a teacher cry in class! And my class did drive our teacher to quit midyear in fifth grade (not me! Almost everyone was being total assholes to her because she wasn’t good at keeping control, but that still didn’t give them the right to be so mean. She was replaced with a passive-aggressive annoying nun, so they got what they deserved).
Something about the 5th grade. We sent poor Mrs Joseph home in tears and she never came back. Sister Elizabeth took over and no one messed with her.
My BF has tears rolling down his face when he hears of animals or children being hurt or worse. I always loved him more for his sensitivity.
I didn’t realize he was weak and I’m supposed to think less of him.* :rolleyes:
*That’s an absolute load of bullshit. I can’t believe people here still think it.
Can’t speak for the ladies, but part of male socialization is “boys don’t cry.” Intellectually some of us might see past that, but the shame & revulsion is still instinctive. I suppose I could lie and say I wouldn’t tell my buddy sitting next to me on the couch, who is crying at the abused animals ads on TV, to dry the fuck up and get us a couple more beers. But that wouldn’t be fair to the OP who is looking for honesty.
Your guy is lucky you don’t think less of him, that’s very advanced of you. But I would caution you against drawing any conclusions about tears & sensitivity. I think most guys care, we just have been trained, deeply, to not cry about it.
I am sorry this happened to you. I was thinking more of situations where crying is a sign of weakness, or at least of an attempt to manipulate/get away with something.
You remember that scene from A League of Their Own where Tom Hanks says “There is no crying in baseball!” I am like that - “There is no crying at work.” Even if I am the manager and I am telling one of my reports that she can’t turn off her damn pager when she’s on call.
Steely resolve is one thing - crying because she got caught is another.
As I said, I am talking bout crying at one of life’s ordinary setbacks.
Or if it’s the playoffs, of course.
Regards,
Shodan
I love this. Thank you for posting it.
I don’t doubt that there are men (and women) who cry every time they break their pencil point, but I don’t know anyone like that in my life. Maybe it’s just me, but in my experience, people I see cry are usually crying out of pain or frustration or fear, and my gut reaction is to want to comfort them. I cry easily (every time I watch the news, I get choked up over something) when I’m alone, but it’s extremely humiliating for me to cry in front of people, so I tend to assume that anyone crying is public is doing it because they’re hurting so much they can’t contain it and are feeling humiliated on top of it, which makes their suffering worse.
When my family and I were going through a big crisis a year ago, I was so overwhelmed with pain that I was openly sobbing in front of everyone, while they were stoic. At the time, I was mortified and repeatedly apologized to everyone for being weak. Only afterwards it hit me – WTF, weak? I was the one doing all the heavy physical and emotional lifting at the time! I was the one getting shit done! They all just sat there, paralyzed by their feelings. Who gives a shit if I was crying while I was doing the work? I was doing the work, while they couldn’t. I was the strongest person there.
Tears have fuck-all to do with weakness. It’s a physiological response to a stimulus, as morally neutral as laughing.
I think crying is a healthy physiological response to extreme stress. I’m also a random crier so I can understand sometimes you just can’t help it. I’m a big believer that emotions positive and negative are a natural and important function of the brain. So when I see a man cry, I feel the same thing I feel when I see a woman cry - compassion.
The only time I didn’t respond with compassion was with an ex who cried every damned day. He was both emotionally immature and used crying to get what he wanted. (My excuse for this relationship is that I was 17.) And he had a tendency to start crying and need to be comforted when we were talking about my issues, at times I most felt I needed support.
Or in physical pain, or the movie got to them. It isn’t positive, it isn’t negative, it just is.
I’ve seen more guys cry at work than elsewhere, in every case from physical pain. The rest of us were wincing mightily.
Permission granted.
But if crying about BS, I think “Suck it up.” Tears of joy or related to something truly difficult, I empathize. This is as true for men as it is women.
This is the Straight Dope. The smartest people on the internet. And if they say,
Then I think we have to believe them. Men who cry are total pussy faggot children. And should probably be kicked in the balls a couple of time just to make sure they have balls.
Couple of things -
The post that you partially quoted did not limit itself to men. That was on purpose.
Second, it did limit itself to “crying over some ordinary setback”.
Regards,
Shodan
I’m a man. A big, hairy, downright scary-looking man…and I cry at movies. And some TV shows, novels, the occasional magazine article…
Luckily, my wife has no problem with that, and frankly I don’t give a shit what people other than my wife think about me crying at movies, etc. I rarely cry in frustration, but then I rarely get into situations where I get that frustrated.
When we first met, we bonded over watching The Elephant Man together, and if you don’t cry at that movie, I really would prefer to not know you.
**Dr. Frederick Treves: ***Am I a good man? Or a bad man? *
gracer. I registered with this site just to tell you that you rock!
Nice to see some humanity left amongst the human.
Ursus.