I am an extremely emotional man. I feel the whole gambit of emotions — anything from unconquerable happiness to hopeless sadness, complete rage to utter passiveness. I am capable of a love that makes me want to carry the burden of someone else's suffering and can also be completely heartless and wish to do unspeakable things to those who I feel deserve it.
Yet despite feeling all these emotions, I express little to none of them. I would say I’m a fairly stoic individual, really only willing to express happiness so as not to dampen anyone’s day. Just because I only express happiness, however, does not mean that I only feel happiness.
I’ve been told that I don’t express myself enough, that it doesn't seem like I am actually sad, for example, because I’m not crying or getting teary-eyed. Now there is absolutely nothing wrong with a man crying; quite the contrary, I think it’s a great thing to encourage men to cry when needed. I just happen to not naturally be a cryer. During some of the saddest moments of my life, such as the death of my grandmother, I did not shed a single tear. I must have seemed pretty heartless to not have cried for the person who was like a mother in my life, but without a doubt, I was feeling a storm of emotions that I would never express outwardly.
Complete dispare, overwhelming anger, a sadness that made me feel empty — I felt all of this and expressed none of it. No tears shed, no words shared, internalized and locked away. To measure my emotional state purely by my shedding of tears was unfair. I expressed my sadness through being quieter than usual, not eating and being lost in thought while staring at objects. In another instance in my life where I was overwhelmed by sadness and other emotions, I lost more than 15 pounds in a month because I just did not have an appetite. I can confirm that without crying, I was sad.
Have I cried during sad moments? Yes, I have. I cried at my senior graduation and at the death of my friend. That does not mean that these moments were more sad in any way, it’s just that for some reason or another, I cried. I, in no way, want to discount crying when one is sad — many times a good cry is exactly what we need to let things out. To judge my level of sadness by whether or not I am crying, however, is unfair and inaccurate. I would venture to say that this same thought can be extended to many other guys as well. Next time a guy experiences something sad, don’t automatically assume he is unaffected purely because of his lack of crying.
