The Crying Game: Stellar Magazine
Title: The Crying Game
Author: Jonathan McCrea
Date: 25th August 2009
Publication: Stellar for publication
It’s actually only recently that I’ve come to realise that girls cry a lot. Only on Saturday my girlfriend was welling up on our couch. She was not stricken with a painful ailment, not drunk or on drugs, nor is she subject to the raging hormonal swings of those young enough to appreciate how dreamy Robert Pattinson is. She was actually crying because she had witnessed a complete stranger fail to make it out of boot camp on a re-run of X-factor’s Best and Worst Auditions. I was gobsmacked. Sensing her audience, she explained in a way that indicated that the conversation was closed before it had been opened: “He just wanted his mum to be proud of him. How could you not be moved by that?” I started to wonder if she might be pregnant.
The next evening, I was invited to dinner by Clare, my close friend and spiritual guide to the world of women. Apparently, reality television is quite a common trigger for the waterworks. “Girls cry all the time you dummy, it’s not a big deal. The back stories to Britain’s Got Talent get me every time. But if it bothers you that much for God’s sake keep don’t let her watch The Notebook, that SMA ad that’s on telly at the moment, or season 2 episode 27 of Grey’s Anatomy.” I didn’t dare ask. After dinner, Clare and I were sipping coffee while her husband David was putting away the dishes. “Have you ever made yourself cry to get your own way?”. In the background David noticeabley paused, and the room suddenly fell silent. Clare bounded off the sofa towards the telly. “Hey, want to watch my wedding video again?” I took the hint and left as quickly as I could.
It’s fascinating what a quick internet search will throw up on the subject: the average woman is a walking geyser. 16 months of the average woman’s life will be spent crying. That’s at least 3500 litres of tears, or enough saltwater to displace the Titanic. Well, almost. I also found out that the fairer sex are also blessed with larger tear ducts than the male of the species. One final tidbit I also found interesting: the top three reasons why a girl aged 0-1 year will cry? Hunger, tiredness and because it’s they’re only form of communication. Judging by some of my family members, this may or may not change upon becoming an adult.
Men hate to see a woman in tears; it’s alien to us. Over the course of his life, the typical man will cry sporadically until the age of 11 for various reasons. Discomfort, hunger, tiredness, a scraped knee, another boy stole my trike, that sort of thing. After that, blubbering in public is seriously discouraged. Boys don’t cry, we’re told; it’s not manly. The only times it’s acceptable to see a grown bloke reach for the Kleenex are moments of sporting greatness and the occasional birth/death situation. Because of the stigma, men have evolved a highly sophisticated alternative method of coping with emotional and physical pain, also known as being a moody bastard. But in learning how to keep a stiff upper lip, we’ve become useless at dealing with ones that quiver. We simply have no idea what do when we see a girl weep.
For example, it’s a well-documented fact that both hormones and seratonin levels can fluctuate widely in the days before menstruation, which can lead to emotional hypersensitivity. Yet I’ve noticed this information is rarely found helpful or comforting when offered to a young lady at the time. Three things not to say to a woman mid hysterical breakdown: 1. “Calm down”. 2: “Don’t you think you’re over-reacting?” 3. “You’re just upset because you have your period”. I once said that last one to an Italian girlfriend who had become highly distraught after discovering an oily stain on her only clean dress on the night of a party. I still have a perfectly crescent-shaped scar on my left hand.
I’m not always that insensitive, but really, what’s the protocol here? What if you barely know the girl at work who has been lashed out of it by the boss and is audibly sniffling away at the typewriter? Should you acknowledge her distress or would that only embarrass her more? If you’ve made your girlfriend upset, do you then try to hug her if she gets emotional? How does that make sense? What if you were justifiably angry, do your feelings somehow get cancelled out?
I say if you can’t reason with ‘em, join em. Maybe men should cry too. An eye for an eye, so to speak. All men could wear their hearts on their sleeves and let loose their emotions. Instead of bottling up our feelings like macho fools, rivers will run freely on our cheeks. It could be the dawn of a new era of harmony between the sexes. At last we’ll know what you’re thinking and we’ll finally understand. And all you have to do is learn to accept a man who’s brave enough to bawl his eyes because he’s burnt the lasagna. Nope? Didn’t think so.