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As always, the most interesting answers to this question probably lie in what isn't said in the replies because it is taken as self-evident. I am not perceptive enough to tease that out, but maybe somebody should.
So, I could wax lyrical about the love of my life for ages here, but I won't. She's too precious for you cynical lot and you don't deserve it (neither do I, but I digress).
Instead, I will tell you an anecdote. When I was in my late twenties and freshly heartbroken, it was around the time PUA became a thing. And I remember leaving a comment under one of those blogposts to the effect of "but I want to be able to cry in front of her, I want to be able to show vulnerability without that being taken as a sign of weakness!" and the reply was "sure, and she wants to cut her toenails and pick her nose in front of you, it just fundamentally makes you less attractive".
Well, let me just say that I found someone that lets me do that without thinking lesser of me (it probably helps that she also said similar things about me as @raggedy_anthem recounts below). Or, as loveless harpies would put it: She provides emotional labor for me.
To me the subject of men crying is pretty easy:
Imagine the ideal paragon of a masculine alpha male. He's got three hot young college girls bent over his bed in a foursome, drilling them and thrilling them with his rabid piston-like ramming and endless stamina, tossing them around like juggling balls. They love him. They'd do anything for him. They would rip a baby right to shreds right on the bed if they thought it would appeal to him or make him devote even a second more of his attention to them. They caress his muscles like a rare and invaluable diamond. They would die for him, kill themselves for him. He is their God because of his pure testosterone-fueled magnetism and charisma.
Maybe in another scene he's fixing a car, sweat and grease smeared across his brow, his 40 year old MILF neighbor that he's doing a favor for wishing she was in the first scene instead (and maybe she will be after the car is done). Maybe in another scene he's surfing, programming (a nice masculine, logical activity), kicking someone's ass, cleaning a gun, humiliating someone verbally with his impenetrable wit, or making millions of dollars.
But in any scenes of his life, is he crying? And if he is, is he letting a woman gawk at it?
So who would you rather be? Would you rather be him or would you rather be given fake pity applause by women for your "emotional sensitivity?" Sure, most of us here will never be that close to this perfect Super Chad Infinity, but would you rather get closer or further away?
And maybe you have a nice wife or girlfriend who is decent enough to tell you that there's nothing wrong with crying and it just shows that you're exquisitely in touch with your feelings unlike some other unenlightened caveman.
But when her fingers snake beneath the waistband of her panties in those idle moments, who is she fantasizing about? Again, who do you want to be?
Is Achilles enough of a paragon of manliness? Is Ulysses? Aeneas? Beowulf? Roland? All of them cry, some quite often, and all in public.
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That's quite a lurid little pornographic fantasy you've TMIed us with there. But you know, Chad Thundercock may not be crying, but he's not doing much in the way of intellectual activities either. (I like how you slipped "programming" in there between surfing and kicking someone's ass, with the "nice masculine, logical activity" qualifier - that is, ahem, a tell.)
Pretty sure your girlfriend isn't snaking her fingers beneath the waistband of her panties imagining you or Chad Thundercock writing code or reading books either.
No. But she's not imagining him surfing or fighting either. She's imagining him fucking, as all people (barring weird fetishes) imagine when they fantasize about somebody else sexually.
That doesn't mean the surfing and fighting don't still turn her on specifically though. It also doesn't mean that programming and reading books turn her off either. Most likely they will just get a superficial "OMG he's smart AND hot!" reaction from her, even if you're just reading Twilight and programming "Hello World". (And of course if you weren't hot the reaction to the same would probably be "What a creepy nerd! He's probably not even as good at programming as Chad!" even if you're reimplementing ChaCha20-Poly1305 directly in PPC assembly.)
Crying though?
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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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The only times I’ve cried in front of my wife related to deaths in my family / when I got emotional about the harm caused to our child due to covid response. Though now at weddings I almost become misty eyed when father daughter dance occurs (I have daughters).
So to me this wasn’t that important (if my wife mocked me for crying about my father dying well that would be a very cold woman). Are you naturally emotional?
I am very sensitive, I guess. I cannot watch Theoden's speech without crying, for example. I am also very neurotic. I ruminate a lot about disrespectful behaviour towards me. Otherwise, I am quick to anger, but also very quick to forgive. I do not always show it and I would say that I have better control over the external symptoms of my emotions than most. I am much more needy than the median man I would say. Or maybe I just admit to it more easily.
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