Men of Tears

This is a new twist on the Iron John movement of the nineties, no? Hmm. As a female I can state that, regardless of my loathing for the sex-and-the-city, soap opera, shopaholic version of womanhood, the sexual sharing stereotype holds firm for me. I can comfortably vent my frustrations to a number of people, and yet most men I have known have no one. Men habitually bottle every day's fears and frustrations up (unless they're venting with anger at family, which is a different story). How tragic. It's easy to laugh at the need for a club for tears-release, but after my initial response ("how pathetic and staged") I can see the point. More power to the men who cry.

fight club anyone?

This post's been up for 12 hours and no one's taken the opportunity for a cheap shot at John Boehner yet? Color me surprised and impressed!

Go ahead, Cornelius. You can cry.

@RonMoses

I'm surprised it too so long for a non-political post to have an attempted hijacking of making it one.

"Some hadn’t cried since they were young boys and wanted to learn how to cry again."

Clearly they've never had to put their dog to sleep.

@MadMolecule

Maybe they did, and that incident or what followed it caused a defence mechanism which kept them from releasing emotional pain through crying. The situation can stem from various causes.

@Live Eels

"I can comfortably vent my frustrations to a number of people, and yet most men I have known have no one."

True, too true. Lost my best (female) friend a handful of years ago over money borrowed and not paid back. (To be fair I gave her 2 years to pay back $600, not unreasonable IMO.)

Since then I haven't had anyone, really, to confide in. Luckily I have some rather evolved male friends that can serve in that role to come extent, but it's not the same.

I've never been averse to crying, but it's still the man-flavor of crying: Alone, quietly, with a bottle. I'm not comfortable crying in the company of other men, so much so that I've used CL to find like minded females with whom I can watch shows and movies that elicit tears (Buffy, Brokeback Mountain, Toy Story 3 etc)

The trope about women wanting sensitive guys who aren't afraid to cry is, as far as I can tell, an almost entirely hollow assertion. Success trumps substance ten times over.

I'm kind of noticing a lot of gender bias in the language of some of these posts. Why does it say "Real men don't cry" in the first place up there? Real men do cry. They're human beings with feelings. This is the kind of banter that perpetuates negative stereotypes.

:~(

The name of this group is off I think. It should be called "Men Who Are Pussies". What is with the continuing chickfication of guys? This is absurd.

There are only three times when it is ok for a man to cry:

1) The death of your parent(s), child or dog.
2) When a man retires from any kind of sports endeavor.
3) During the movie "Field of Dreams".

If a man cries at any other time than those listed above, he's a pussy and should admit as such.

Otherwise, they need to reach down between their legs, grab their cajones and man up.