Friday, July 28, 2006

Why don't men cry?


Anonymous
12:50:50 PM

16 comments:

PChis said...

Of course men cry, it's just very rare and rarely in public.

I remember as a ten year old not crying was sort of a mental battle between the whole wanting to cry and the whole "big boys don't cry" mentality.

Now, however, it isn't really a decision at all, anything that others might cry at just isn't worth crying for. I just don't do it.

During more serious things like fights and such where some would warrant crying, I feel a lot men find refuge in anger. I mean, there's angry anger, and then there's sad anger (for me at any rate), but both result in snapping, yelling, and breaking things.


I guess, despite my long winded explanation, I don't really know. Perhaps it was a choice at one point , but it's disgraceful for men to cry except in great tragedies, so we end up on the spectrum of not crying.


Personally I believe not crying most of my life will make the few cries I have (at things such as my mother's death I suppose) more meaningful.

Graffiti Pastry said...

I almost never cry in public, as a rule. I'm pretty sure it's a defense I developed for myself, feeling the need to propagate that idea of being a "guy".

However, I will cry at movies, and when I read very good books. Shamelessly.

And of course I'll cry all by my lonesome. Often enough the tears come from anger and frustration, not necessarily being sad. Crying is a way of release, not only as a measure of sadness.

thewordofrashi said...

Sometimes I will come very close to crying. But I never actually do to the extent that I think someone would actually call crying. Never in public, of course. I channel sadness into anger, because after all, if I'm sad, it must be somebody's fault.

But men don't cry. Quite franklly, that's what separates the men from the boys.

Anonymous said...

A guy friend of mine told me that he cried twice during a trip that we both came back from a couple of weeks ago. It only made me respect him even more, because it was a pretty emotionally-invested trip.

Graffiti Pastry said...

If you don't cry it's not so much a measure of self-control, but a lack of emotion to tap into. If you don't need to cry, then you won't. If you haven't experienced anything, then you won't cry.

Of course, there are those who just cry buckets all the time. We call that crocodile tears.

Anonymous said...

I cried at the last scene of saving private ryan.

Anonymous said...

they do cry.
it just takes a lot.

sometimes.

Anonymous said...

i cry rarely. I dont cry when things happen, I reason first, when I've looked back on things i have cried before. I think it just takes a bit of time to work out emotions, after i analyse the situation.

Anonymous said...

o yea that last part in saving private ryan was sad, particularly the part where he was stabbed slowly.

Anonymous said...

Real men don't cry and don't eat quiche. PERIOD.

Anonymous said...

lets all have a slumber party cryfest

Graffiti Pastry said...

Quiche really does suck. I don't care who you are, it just does.

Swales said...

Quiche makes me cry. I suppose that means I'm not a real man. Pity.

Anonymous said...

Remeber that commercial about quiche. The guy orders a Quickie from the waitress and she slaps him. His friend then says "Dude its pronounced quiche".

Anonymous said...

I like that, even though I've never seen the commercial.

It somehow seems to make the absolute atrocity of quiche seem more bearable.

Anonymous said...

All men are different, I'm sure there are plenty that will cry at the drop of a hat, while others will rarely shed a tear.

Like others have mentioned, more meaning is attached to the times when a guy breaks down and sobs a little if he almost never does so.

I feel that (for me) crying is unnecessary, even at the most deserving of times. Tears distract others involved in a situation, and promote a melancholy atmosphere.

My niche is as the guy who sees a bright side to everything, and who can provide the shoulder to be cried upon. I can still count on one hand how many times I have truly cried in response to something, and not simply felt sad.

Even as I write this, I feel a bit of remorse for my internalized emotion, though it adds not one more finger needed to tally the list of tears.