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  • I remember I rarely cried as a teen. On one of the rare occasions I did (I was stressed about school), my dad told me to suck it up and would periodically tease me about it for months afterward. My mom, meanwhile, told me verbally it was ok to cry, but if I ever actually tried to come to her to vent about anything, she would brush me off immediately.

    Cut to well over a decade later, living on my own, it's really helpful to cry. Unfortunately we live in a culture where if you, as a man, cry in front of others, you're likely to lose respect even if you're literally in mourning. I teared up when the whole thing with Angella happened in She-Ra, I wept for hours when Trump got elected again. I cried on and off for a long time after my best friend of over 15 years ghosted me out of nowhere, but it was always alone (except for once, which I deeply regret. That's a long story but it did reinforce what I'm saying).

    If another man came to me to cry about something, I wouldn't want to discourage him, but I'm not sure I would even know how to react.

    • I read somewhere a long time ago that males are evolutionarily designed to react aggressive at the sound of crying as a defense from predators or something hurting a member of our tribe, whereas females are more likely to rush to apply aid to support injury or feed a hungry child. I'm not sure if that's true or some man-o-sphere bullshit I heard/read, but it might have some scientific grounding. I became a father in Dec. 2019. I still struggle to emotionally support my own 5.5yo child when he's really upset. It tends to make me upset, almost angry, and I find myself wanting to yell at him to stop!

      It's taken years of therapy to get comfortable with these emotions when I feel them, yet alone to get to a point where I can support him when he does. However, developing emotional awareness over the last decade means my son will not have to grow up hearing, I'll give you something to cry about, like I did. Now, I'm able to identify when he is just pissed I won't give him candy for breakfast and when he is emotionally overwhelmed and needs more emotional support.

      Man, from the environment, to social safety nets, to us adult children and our emotional awareness, the boomer and gen-x parents have really fucked us all!

  • I think some of it comes down to the fact that quite a few guys aren't set off by things that tend to set women off. It's like the meme of "I can't believe he didn't cry at Titanic" and then the bottom is the dude with the shadows over his face looking at the ending for Of mice and men. I think a lot of guys need either the right build up or just the right trigger to actually cry due to emotional reasons.

    Though I do think it's at least partially due to toxic masculinity, but at least for myself I tend to just feel hollow at rather than wanting to cry. The type of emotion that makes you want to take a hot bath and lay in front of a fan for a couple hours. Though I do openly ball my eyes out when my pets die.

    • As a woman, it's wild how much hormones affect things. Most of the time, I can walk by a playground where kids are playing and not think much of it. But when my estrogen levels peak, the sound of happy children hits me deep - their laughter reminds me of the pure joy of childhood. How it feels to swing on a swing without a care. Having nothing to worry about except being tagged during a game. Knowing there are people who will look out for you, unconditionally, so you don't have to worry about affording rent or food or health care.

      I'm instantly filled with the sense of happy freedom they're expressing, which is so beyond adulthood experience that it can overwhelm me. That's when I start to cry.

      I'm well aware of the downsides of childhood. Still, in those moments, it's like the kids' collective happiness transfers straight into me and my brain doesn't know what to do with so much innocent bliss.

      So, I can concede that there is likely at least some hormonal influence that results in different emotional perceptions for different people. I'm already very empathic, but peak estrogen seems to dial it up to 11.

      Then toxic masculinity attempts to exaggerate such differences, while also misapplying the concept in order to separate people into assigned gender roles. Boys are absolutely socialized to suppress many of their emotions, while girls aren't subject to the same rule. Except, of course, with anger or public sadness. (Crying alone? That's expected. But not smiling while in public? That's a sin.)

      Like most things about people, it's a mix of nature and nurture (and epigenetics.)

  • Most men do cry and I think the myth that most of us don't is almost as damaging as the other social pressures that prevented the rest of us from ever doing so. It's not as socially acceptable for men to cry as it is for women, which is why when men do cry it's often in private.

  • It’s okay to cry and feel all the feels. I had worked with a young boy who thought all of his feelings were “mad”. Truly there were so many feelings under the surface, but he only felt he could admit to being angry. Seems pretty common.

  • It's like a volcano. It just happens when it happens and there's no precisely predicting it or knowing exactly how it will all play out, but once the pressure builds up sufficiently, it'll be pretty spectacular and dramatic.

    Alone. At home.

  • What I don't understand is how people cry for hours, past 5 minutes I am too exhausted to feel.

  • Talking, exercise, sad or angry music, journaling, video games, shower, petting animals. If I am full blown sobbing that usually means I am in a deep depression which usually means I am not doing these things.

  • If you cry everytime you shit, you should eat more fiber. It will also make your health better and reduce the chances of heart failure.

  • For me it's just difficult to cry, even when I want to. It's like you have to strike a really deep emotional chord to bring it out, and while I do hit it sometimes, it's not very often. I'll be damned though if there aren't random days here and there throughout the year where I feel very emotional, and even just thinking about how much I love my daughter makes me well up a little. Men are weird animals.

    Meanwhile my wife will see a baby cow, and in the span of a millisecond she will see it's entire life and inevitable meat death, and begin crying mid-sentence. Fans at her face and goes, "And now I'm crying?!"

  • There is always the go of stuff that is annoying you.

    Unless it is actually important, let it go, life is too short to dwell on unimportant shit.

    Read some Stoic philosophy.

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