No work of fiction has ever gotten me to cry...I think. I've gotten misty-eyed a few times, but nothing's made me outright cry. Though, this is in recent history - I very well may have cried at more things when I was a young kid. Every time I've cried since I was 10, it's been due to a real world cause. Death of a family member, in most cases.

In some situations, I've held back on tears just as a way to not distress others. At my grandfather's funeral, I was standing around the casket talking with one of my uncles when one of my cousin's kids *she was three* asked "Is Grandpa sleeping?"

Responding to that with a straight face was one of the hardest things I've EVER had to do in my life.

Khell_Sennet:

Dectilon:
Crying is good. It's a reciept on your sanity apparently : P I saw some other documentary about how psychopaths never cry, and that that channel of emotional release being blocked is one of the reasons for the condition.

So as someone who is both psychotic AND able to cry, does that make me a supervillain?

Psychotic and a psychopath (real name Sociopath) are different things.
A sociopath lacks the mental and emotional ability to cry, not the physical one. Sociopaths lack empathy and morals completely. Most sociopaths on earth never do anything really wrong (y'know, like...Norman Bates wrong.), not because they don't want to hurt others or such, but because they'd probably get caught and the risk outweighs the rewards.
Being psychotic just means you're crazy. Big difference.

Half-Life 2: Episode 2

If the ending of that episode didn't manage to jerk a tear from you as, well, I'll let you find out for yourself, then there is something seriously wrong with your ability to even display emotions privately to yourself.

Why is it that our ability to display emotion seems to be measured solely on our ability to cry? It's really no different to any other emotional reaction. I'd hazard a guess that it's part of this "sensitive society", where everybody has to have moments of weakness by law.

And as for the ending of Episode Two, well, some of us just don't form emotional attachments. It's like buying a pet: All you're purchasing is a small tragedy.

Men (and women in certain subcultures) refuse to cry because they're trained never to appear vulnerable. Showing vulnerability is like dripping blood in the shrark pool.

I allow myself to cry, rage, laugh, scream and all the rest because I want to experience as much of the range of human experience as I can. If that means I get hurt sometimes, all the better. I suppose I could bottle it up and be "safer", but there's really no such thing as safety. Death gets us all in the end. As a Buddhist friend of mine said: "It's not about eating the hamburger, it's about eating the hell out of the hamburger."

Having said that, "The Longest Journey" is the only electronic game that ever got my waterworks going at all. "Silent Hill 2" came close.

As for movies that make me cry I know at least one film that can make even the toughest jock start to weep: the Grave of the Fireflies. It's not just a sad movie, it's outright DEPRESSING. Though for me, the moments I cried watching movies were during FullMetal Alchemist and Neon Genesis Evangelion. I felt really sorry for Shinji and Ed. And I have yet to meet ANYONE of EITHER gender who can last through the ending of Old Yeller without breaking down into tears.

I am a pretty manly man by most accounts. I have at one period of my life been an amature MMA fighter, I can't pass by a Conan movie if it's on, I like bloody steak, etc...

I also am someone who shed a few tears when Atreyu lost his horse to the swamp (Neverending Story), a few more when a knight sacrificed himself to buy his pals a few precious seconds to bail out (Sturm from the Dragonlance books), and quite a few in private later after seeing the hurt on my mom's face when my grandmother died.

Now, I can't say I condone being a wuss about things and I will say that I feel that a man must know how to control his emotions, but I will also say that we must know that it's OK sometimes.... that we are also not immune to the effects of media on our emotions. The part that gets confusing is the *when* part. We are supposed to be rocks for those we care for. So, as long as you arent having a breakdown when you are needed I don't see a problem with it at all. To quote a favorite modern philosopher of mine:
"Crying doesn't make you less of a man. It's what you do when you aren't crying that defines you as a man. Courage is not shed along with the tears."--Paco

Last time I cried? Well gee, looks like I'm gonna be the girly man of the group (and anyone taking offence should just remember that "girly man" should be pronounced only in a fake Arnold Schwarzenegger voice).

See, I cry a bit. Or at least, I should. I figured out some years ago that it was the most effective method of clearing out my system - bawl like a girl on day one and you're fine by day three. None of this "built-up trama shite". Technically speaking I'm not actually capable of crying any more, at least not like a kid. But sobbing hard-out into a pillow for an hour or two does the job.

Thing is, a friend of mine just died over Christmas and I haven't cried. Haven't even been able to. I was staying with friends so I held it in (crying=pansy, remember) for three days and after that I just couldn't any more. Couldn't even work myself into the state. Bit of a bugger, really, I've been battling depression since then.

Man, that's depressing...

BOOBIES!!! :D

Okay, feeling manlier now. Time to talk about women.

Far as I can tell, their relationships are (for better or worse) more intimate.

I've been with some level-headed girls, but I've been out with some real nut-jobs, too (one of them was kind enough to let me know it was official after we'd been together for two weeks).
Okay, maybe 'nut-job' is a bit harsh, but I can certainly relate to the stories of them going berko over nothing.

Here's a question some of you will relate to: "Does this make me look fat?".
When's the last time that conversation ended well? For me, pretty much never. But then I've learned that when she asks a heterosexual male "Does this make me look fat?" she's already made up her mind and she's really asking "Do you notice?". Just save yourself the bother and say "Yes" without even looking. If you're still together after that she'll never ask you again.

Specific cases aside, I don't think women particularly cry over nothing, though I've certainly been accused of being cold for not crying at the right moment...

Incidentally, I don't think any females have written into this one yet and I can't say I blame them at this stage. Correct me if I'm wrong.

ExileNZ:
Incidentally, I don't think any females have written into this one yet and I can't say I blame them at this stage. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Corrected.

The last episdode of B5 is not "Sleeping in Shadows", it's "Sleeping in Light".

Babylon 5 had some truly heart breaking moments, the decommisioning is particuarly good. Marcus' death ranks up their as well.

Battlestar Galactica is great, but its less of the crying, more of the jaw-on-the floor. Adama being shot springs to mind, as well as what happens in Maelstrom(I wont spoil it for folks who haven't seen series three yet.)

I've cried before. The last time I remember was at the end of FFX.

Edit: I did tear up when my gf broke up with me, though.

I don't cry alot because it dosen't get me anywhere or fix the problem. The only movies I cry during are all of Band of Brothers and certain parts of Black Hawk Down. My eyes get watery when I watch the crashed Black Hawk get overun and the pilot tries to hold on to the picture of his family while hes being beaten by the mob.

When EE died in Sons of Liberty (I assume you've all played it by now, as its as old as the bloody dinosaurs).

And a shed one at the end of Click. Heheh.

I'm just curious - are there any actual females following this thread? Because there seems to be a lot of broad generalizations about female behavior (and male behavior) flying around. I'm just saying, because when I try these statements on for size, they really ride up in the crotch.

Judging from my own experience and taking the above assumptions as fact, one of the following must be true:

a.) Despite the undeniable presence of boobies and a va-jay-jay in my physiology, I am, in fact, a guy.
b.) I am a stone-cold bitch, fallen to the Dark Side, who views tears as a sign of pathetic weakness.
c.) I am cyborg.
d.) I am desperately in need of some Restasis.

I rarely squeeze a tear for anything, but I have done so for anime, comic books, movies, and TV. and again, my taste in movies is "masculine," tending largely to sci-fi, action, martial arts, and westerns.

For the record, did I cry for Babylon 5? Yes. Did I cry for Serenity? No, because a was too busy restraining myself from throwing my drink at the screen and screaming, "WHAT THE FUCK JOSS YOU BASTARD!"

Which brings me to the topic of Anger, and the suggestion that men and women are equally emotional but express it in different ways. Example from real life, from a colleague of mine back when I worked at the World's Largest Software Company. She was in a high-pressure meeting fighting for the life of her project, and under the load of overwhelming anger and frustration, let slip some tears. At the same meeting, a male project manager stood up, screamed profanities, and threw a pad of paper across the room. Later in a managerial review, she was evaluated as being "too emotional". He was not. But tell me, who in that room was displaying more emotion?

Now, here's a thought. Often, I do not cry because I am too emotional. It spikes my CPU and I can't do anything. Error: The program Tears is not responding. Wait/End Program? You guys tell me, since I am a female guy and therefore may have it all wrong, does this happen to you? Someone humiliates you, gets in your face, backs you into a corner, leaves you helpless - what do you do? Because looking at the faces of guys who are being bullied and belittled, that's what it looks like to me. Wait/Cancel? Cancel. I know that, when my computer does that (Vista and 1GB of RAM, don't even get me started) it becomes automatic for me to click Cancel without even being aware of it. That looks like no emotion, but it isn't.

Some women talk about having a "good cry", which I think is like having a "good vomit" - I'm glad I got that bad Mongolian barbeque out of my system, but sure do not feel fucking refreshed. To continue my computer metaphor, I think of crying as maintenance on the level of CHKDSK, defrag, and sfc/ scannow - you don't have to do it, and some people don't think it's necessary, but you are kind of asking for corruption problems if you don't do it occasionally.

A couple people have already mentioned this, but I'll just bring it up here. The societal expectations, right? If a woman stands up in a meeting and curses and throws shit, she's a crazy bitch. If a guy sits in a meeting and tears up, he's a pathetic pussy. Says the crazy bitch. Although I wait until after the meetings and then curse into the internets and throw shit in the privacy of my office.

OK, enough with the psychobabble. I'm starting to talk like a chick, right? So, carrying on. Everytime this topic comes up, the token female in the thread has to stand up and say this, and this time it's my turn --

The reason your girlfriends don't watch sci-fi with you is that the female characters suck.

The last time I cried was for Battlestar Galactica. No shortage of female awesomeness there. Ditto Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Ditto B5. I think I even went a little soft at the end of KOTOR 2. But Star Trek: The Next Generation - forgeddaboutit. I cannot cry when my eyes are rolling that far back in my head. Yeah, yeah, Tasha Yar - dude! they killed her in the first season and left me with nothing but fucking Troi and Crusher.

I'm not going into the Mean Girl/Queen Bee/Backstab dynamic that goes on when girls are fighting over the top slot in a male-dominated group. It's too involved and off-topic. Suffice it to say, it's its own thing and involves a specific subset of competitive female.

Oh, and Khell_Sennet, if you are a weepy psycho, that makes you Crying Freeman.

mshcherbatskaya wrote:
(some awesome stuff)

So uh, are you married?

MichaelAB:
Real men do cry, but it takes something special, like the death of Optimus Prime.

So true. that was my first ever daeth experience and I will never forget it. Lest we forget.

Razzle Bathbone:
Men (and women in certain subcultures) refuse to cry because they're trained never to appear vulnerable. Showing vulnerability is like dripping blood in the shrark pool.

This is more true than I think people would like to admit. When I was a child I was punished for crying, regardless of the fact that I was a little girl, and emotionally unstable to boot. I am more likely to give myself a bloody nose (true story) than to give into the urge to cry.

That said, being a female, I find it extremely disorienting whenever I see men cry. Not because I don't think they have feelings, but because you are so good at holding it in! I didn't even see my father cry when his mother died. I'm sure he did, just not in front of us kiddies. In constrast, I have seen my husband tear up at a particularly moving church sermon, or because of a fight within his family.

Whether or not you cry has absolutely no bearing on your capacity for emotion, regardless of gender. It's more a matter of upbringing.

On a final note (since there seem to be some terrible misconceptions about women)I love to watch sci-fi movies, play video games, and have drunken guitar hero tournaments. (and mshcherbatskaya: thank you for being a badass and a credit to our gender)

Gyrfalconne:

Whether or not you cry has absolutely no bearing on your capacity for emotion, regardless of gender. It's more a matter of upbringing.

Absolutely true. Ever since I can remember, I was consistently told that "big boys don't cry". And got scolded for it as I got older. Big surprise that I don't cry very easily now.

..Did I just use scolded in a sentence?

Manliest thread ever. Lol.

Sadly, I once cried when one of my girlfriends broke up with me... Yea I know.....

I don't form the emotional attachments with people that I do with characters in games and movies. Mostly because the people around me are grade A pricks, but in games those characters actually MEAN something to me.

Haliwali:
I don't form the emotional attachments with people that I do with characters in games and movies. Mostly because the people around me are grade A pricks, but in games those characters actually MEAN something to me.

I'm the same way. Except for the aforementioned tearing up. I still tear up whenever I hear Aerith's Theme or To Zanarkand. If those two tracks come on, I have to turn them off before the end to prevent crying.

felltablet:

Foss:
I figure it's all about empathy. Women get along so well because they're so good at empathising. But I guess it's harder to do that with guys, because we don't display our emotions so readily.

Quite possibly the funniest statement I've ever read.
In my experience, (and anyone with even a small amount of female friends seems to agree) the absolute reverse is true. Don't flame me here but the trend I observe is that female-female friendships can be ridiculously fickle. There is often nonstop bickering, jealousy, along with scheming and simply malicious backstabbing.

The "bitch" of a group seems to do more damage than someone who just thinks he has a huge member.

I didn't specifically mean women with other women. I meant women get on with people in general better than men do.

That's what I've seen, at any rate. And at a university that's 85% women, it seems like a pretty reliable source.

Certain songs get a teary reaction from me.

American Pie is the worst culprit. Really, I can't explain it. I'm a 29 year old Australian. Born in the wrong era and wrong country for a song about the loss of American innocence to affect me so.

Khell_Sennet:

After going to Cloverfield last night, and having to sit behind three rows of fuqtards who wouldn't stop texting with their damn cellphones, I would have quite willingly stabbed out their eyes so they'd have no more use for text messages... But my good knife and kubaton were both at home.

Fuqtards? Is that the French spelling?

Also, how do you stab someone with a kubaton? They're usually blunt. Maybe you have a pointy one, I dunno, but I figure if you're going to carry a pointy one, you might as well just stab people with a sturdy pen...

Last time I cried was through sheer exasperation, not because of sadness or pain. I got an ear infection after diving in the Philippines and ended up with a fever. I would have been exploring the island I was staying on further (and getting some awesome nature pics) but couldn't do anything instead but sweat and tremble. I felt really bad because not just my holiday, but that of my girlfriend, who was doing her nurse bit, was being disrupted by this.

So, frustration and guilt.

Only time I remember crying because of fiction is from the first time I read the end of "Of Mice and Men". Lenny deserved better than that, dammit. Also I was about 12.

I think the comments which people made about the way in which culturally constructed gender roles prevent men from crying, or at least make us reluctant to cry, are relevant and quite apart from the discussion of sociopaths, psychopaths and psychotics, may well go a long way toward explaining the higher incidence of suicide amongst men.

Maybe if we allowed ourselves a set time and place when "it's OK to cry" this would provide a vent to that potentially destructive emotional energy. Too bad that for most men I know this is only acceptable if you're blind drunk and your team has just lost a sporting event.

Aside from some war movies the only other way you could get me to cry is from intense pain, not like a broken leg pain but like stabbing me with a dull knife pain.

Razzle Bathbone:

mshcherbatskaya wrote:
(some awesome stuff)

So uh, are you married?

Uh, thanks. No, I'm not. You got a sister?

Realization/Admission: when giving my post a final look-through before submitting, I was mentally reading it in my best Yahtzee-voice. I guess this makes me an official Yahtzee fangirl. That means I will have to get that Yahtzee/Valve slashfic archive up and running now.

(Yes, I totally went there and I don't even know why.)

Gyrfalconne:

On a final note (since there seem to be some terrible misconceptions about women)I love to watch sci-fi movies, play video games, and have drunken guitar hero tournaments. (and mshcherbatskaya: thank you for being a badass and a credit to our gender)

Thanks, Gyrfalconne. Seriously, I've been posting variants of that screed to mailing lists, Usenet groups, message boards, blogs, and Livejournal communities since 1997. I do this because whenever anyone, feminist, sexist, biological determinist, religious fundamentalist, self-help author, random internet whackjob, starts holding forth on How Women Behave, I invariable come up as Not A Woman. And no, I'm not some boot-stomping butch, either. I'm just (apparently) some sort of freak who happens to have a lot of similar freaks as friends. I know a lot of Women from Mars and a lot of Men from Venus (and most of them are straight.) Which is not to say that I don't believe women have a radically different experience from men (that's a different screed) but just to say that generalizations really don't do anything to help us understand each other, they just make it easier to write each other off.

I very rarely saw so many cliches and generalizations in one thread :) This looks like every girl starts crying whenever a remotely sad scenes comes along a movie. Hell, Ive never witnessed a girl cry over that. Maybe some do, but not all of em. Maybe a default 'display' for negative emotions leans towards tears for women, and anger for men. I also think upbringing has to do with it. I also know a good amount of women who are just...well, normal women, but I've never seen em shed tears. Example, I only saw my mother cry once...in private, in the period of the divorce. I can guess why; she didn't want to confront others with her feelings, so she kept it to herself. Which is also what many men tend to do.

by the way, while a few tears might 'clear' the emotional system, it is sometimes overrated for that purpose. I find that it's actually hard to feel better again when the tears start. It just keeps coming.

I teared up yesterday due to a video game. Mass Effect, AA Tower/bomb site. If you've played it, you know. Damn you Bioware for screwing with my emotions.

thebobmaster:
I teared up yesterday due to a video game. Mass Effect, AA Tower/bomb site. If you've played it, you know. Damn you Bioware for screwing with my emotions.

What's funny about that was that people became aware that they'd lose a party member before launch, and started planning to get rid of "worthless aliens". Of course, the joke was on them.

mshcherbatskaya:
You got a sister?

mshcherbatskaya:
That means I will have to get that Yahtzee/Valve slashfic archive up and running now.

(puts two and two together)

Oh, you're from FW! Cool. Welcome!

I'm an only child as it happens. Too bad; if I had a sister I would totally try to fix you up with her.

Razzle Bathbone:

mshcherbatskaya:
You got a sister?

mshcherbatskaya:
That means I will have to get that Yahtzee/Valve slashfic archive up and running now.

(puts two and two together)

Oh, you're from FW! Cool. Welcome!

I'm an only child as it happens. Too bad; if I had a sister I would totally try to fix you up with her.

By FW do you mean Fandom_Wank? Because I don't actually belong to it, but I witnessed its birth. That was kind of epic, really. ::nostalgic sigh:: For a while there, all your base that weren't belong to us waz pastede on yay! Or is there a different FW I should be aware of?

Believe me, you wouldn't be doing your non-existent sister any favors, but thanks!