There's nothing sexy about emotional constipation.
I don't believe in emotional constipation, I believe in mutually unintelligible emotional languages which can make it appear as though someone is emotionally constipated because if you don't understand their emotional vocabulary then you're unlikely to read their behaviour for the right emotional cues.
Bullshit and more bullshit.
First piece of bullshit: the jargon of "being in touch with one's feelings"--as if feelings were persons distinct from oneself with whom one is in communication. "Been in touch with your feelings lately?" "Yes, I got a nice postcard from one of them the other day."
Second piece of bullshit: the assumption that a man who does not cry lacks self-awareness or self-knowledge. Nobody is readier to give vent to his feelings than a child: I would hardly consider a child a model of self-awareness; quite the contrary. In fact it takes self-awareness to control one's feelings.
Third piece of bullshit: the idea that not crying in front of other people shows a lack of concern for them. I would say that it is just as common for people who cry in front of others to be self-absorbed manipulators, even--or perhaps especially--if they are unaware of what they are doing. The worst manipulators of other people are the ones who do it by instinct and without self-awareness, through the display of emotions of distress and hurt.
Fourth piece of bullshit: "It doesn't matter when a person cries. If a guy is integrated as a human being, he cries when his feelings arise in him." Every socially competent adult, male or female, knows better than this. There are plenty of situations in which crying will have very bad consequences for you and perhaps for others who depend on you. E.g., if you hold a position of responsibility and go boo-hooing when the going gets tough for you, you are not going to hold that position for very long.
I agree with you completely in this Cal. To be a grown up is to be in charge of how you behave and how you react to the feelings you have. There are of course extreme situations in which no one could be expected to have control of themselves but in general terms emotional responsibility and being aware of the effect emotional expression has on those around you is one of the key attributes of an adult personality.
Your attitude is exactly what is fundamentally wrong with American males. As long as men and women like you have these backward and unaware ideas, we as a people will be the continual laughing stock of the planet. Manipulation has nothing to do with emotions unless the person is unconscious...like a child or a dissociative adult. Being in touch with one's feelings doesn't mean acting out. It means knowing what is arising in your mental and emotional states in order to integrate yourself as a full human being.
Now maybe you're used to telling people to their face that their ideas are bullshit, to use your compassionate language, but that's not what I'm used to in intelligent conversation. To me you just proved your barbarian status, which seems to be more and more common on this site of late.
TBH Jon, if someone using the word "bullshit" makes you consider them a barbarian then you must live in some seriously cotton-candy, unicorns and carebears world. What Calboner was saying to you was incredibly sage and insightful even if you don't like that he used a swear.
This notion of being an emotionally disintegrated person because you don't turn into the equivalent of a screaming toddler in a supermarket everytime life throws you a curve ball is nonsense, and went out with primal screaming and astral projection in terms of how emotional wellbeing is commonly framed these days.
Is refusal to cry necessarily a denial of a range of emotion? I would argue that crying is merely one optional way to respond to an emotion or emotional situation. I would further insist that crying is never one's only option. I would also say that it is incredibly difficult to accomplish something useful and cry at the same time considering the degree to which crying can inhibit eyesight. This isn't to say that crying is or is not appropriate. However, isn't it sometimes appropriate to choose some other response and get things done?
See I don't cry very often, I can count the number of times I've cried in the last 15 years on one hand. It's most definitely not because I supress it, if I felt I needed to I would do so, but I'm just not someone who is on a constant emotional rollercoaster ride, and despite some of the awful things that have happened over the years I've never felt the strong urge to weep about them.
I almost never cry about stuff that's happened to me in fact, I'm more liable to mope and get moody if something horrible happens to me (which thankfully these days is rare enough) but even then my approach to misfortune or pain is normally to try and find a practical or problem-solving solution to whatever's happening rather than have a meltdown. I get emotional catharsis from having at least tried to do something concrete even if it was futile.
I cry (on those rare occassions I do so) about terrible things which have happened to other people, normally because I feel like I have no practical way of helping them, for me crying is an expression of helplessness and despair. Something I almost never feel about my own life, even if I do sometimes feel it about what's happening to someone else.
I don't think less of anyone for dealing with their emotions in whatever way is most authentic to them, but like Calboner I'm suspicious of people who use certain kinds of emotional display to manipulate the feelings of others.
If a guy cries it's not likely to make me think less of him unless I think it's inauthentic and an attempt to control the outcome of a given situation.
Do I think men should not cry? No I do not think that, but then I don't think women have carte blanche to cry at the drop of a hat either. I think both sexes should in adulthood be emotionally self aware enough to be able to calibrate and moderate how they express authentic emotion according to the effect doing so will have on those around them, which of course includes a huge range of behaviours not restricted to crying.
