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...So, does she pick her nose in front of you?
(Fwiw my husband's ability to cry from sheer emotion is something I cherish about him, coming from a family that has all the emotional range of a shriveled peanut. He cries whenever he's feeling really deeply and just thinking about it makes my heart go all melty. He's just so emotionally well adjusted and not fucked up and repressed! I thought that kind of thing was a myth!)
I see womwn talking a whole lot about how they conclude that a man who cries is in touch with his emotions. That is typical minding males.
It assumes men that men can or even want to cry to begin with but are hiding it.
I for example, cry maybe once a year or two. Not because I dont feel strong emotions, quite the opposite. Its just that crying is not my natural physical reaction. I couldnt do it even if I wanted to. Its a testosterone thing.
Define “crying”?
Full on crying that lasts more than a minute, I can’t remember the last time I did that. But I will frequently shed a few tears when I’m just reflecting on things and I become overwhelmed by the gravity of a certain concept, or I encounter a particularly beautiful piece of prose, or things of that nature. It’s quite easy and natural for me.
But I’m also a huge weirdo and I shouldn’t be taken as an exemplar of any demographic, man or woman.
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I mean, I assume the men and women I know who never, ever cry — my grandfather was noted as having cried a total of three times in his entire adult life, my aunts/uncles do not cry at funerals or weddings— have plenty of emotions. It's nonetheless also obvious they are uncomfortable with expressing said emotions in a lot of contexts, not just crying. The ability and willingness to cry is a symptom of being more emotionally open, not more emotionally feeling.
It's fine for you if you don't cry, it's not like it even would have been a deal breaker for me, given how used to it I already am. But that doesn't change that it's a relief to me that my husband does cry, and that I appreciate that about him.
I think many of us view crying as being emotionally overwhelmed. In this view, it's not about openeness, it's about self-control and emotional maturity.
Right, and viewing crying as a lack of self control and a lack of emotional maturity would be something I'd want to run away from. Someone who lets himself cry is strongly signalling that he does not believe crying is a lack of control and a lack of emotional maturity.
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