Within the last couple years, I’ve made massive breakthroughs in allowing myself to cry. There’s been a few nights where it lasts as long as an hour. It’s strange, but I enjoy it afterwards. It’s a relief like any other to just let yourself go for a while.
this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2025
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I never feel better after crying, just tired.
I should say it’s usually the day after that it has the effect. In the moment, it sucks, but I know I need it.
I remember I rarely cried as a teen. On one of the rare occasions I did (I was stressed about school), my dad told me to suck it up and would periodically tease me about it for months afterward. My mom, meanwhile, told me verbally it was ok to cry, but if I ever actually tried to come to her to vent about anything, she would brush me off immediately.
Cut to well over a decade later, living on my own, it's really helpful to cry. Unfortunately we live in a culture where if you, as a man, cry in front of others, you're likely to lose respect even if you're literally in mourning. I teared up when the whole thing with Angella happened in She-Ra, I wept for hours when Trump got elected again. I cried on and off for a long time after my best friend of over 15 years ghosted me out of nowhere, but it was always alone (except for once, which I deeply regret. That's a long story but it did reinforce what I'm saying).
If another man came to me to cry about something, I wouldn't want to discourage him, but I'm not sure I would even know how to react.
I read somewhere a long time ago that males are evolutionarily designed to react aggressive at the sound of crying as a defense from predators or something hurting a member of our tribe, whereas females are more likely to rush to apply aid to support injury or feed a hungry child. I'm not sure if that's true or some man-o-sphere bullshit I heard/read, but it might have some scientific grounding. I became a father in Dec. 2019. I still struggle to emotionally support my own 5.5yo child when he's really upset. It tends to make me upset, almost angry, and I find myself wanting to yell at him to stop!
It's taken years of therapy to get comfortable with these emotions when I feel them, yet alone to get to a point where I can support him when he does. However, developing emotional awareness over the last decade means my son will not have to grow up hearing, I'll give you something to cry about, like I did. Now, I'm able to identify when he is just pissed I won't give him candy for breakfast and when he is emotionally overwhelmed and needs more emotional support.
Man, from the environment, to social safety nets, to us adult children and our emotional awareness, the boomer and gen-x parents have really fucked us all!
!Reprieve@lemmy.zip is here for all these guys needing a space to talk about this stuff instead of turning it into cancer or alcoholism
I like the following method. I promise to myself that if things are going to continue to be as they are, I'm going to kill myself. I plan what needs to be done, how to prepare and staff and suddenly I can see clearly through my emotions.
Weird and dangerous method compared to crying, but I can't cry when I'm in a negative cycle.
I always have that method planned out, but also I cry often when I want to. So while I haven't cried at work or in "public" settings since I was younger than 10, I have cried during about 500 movies. Shit I think I was teary eyed watching David Attonboroughs, Ocean last night. Throw in just about every other movie with a desperate act of loyalty which would be stupid to do in real life and near every decent animated movie and it adds up quick.
I think some of it comes down to the fact that quite a few guys aren't set off by things that tend to set women off. It's like the meme of "I can't believe he didn't cry at Titanic" and then the bottom is the dude with the shadows over his face looking at the ending for Of mice and men. I think a lot of guys need either the right build up or just the right trigger to actually cry due to emotional reasons.
Though I do think it's at least partially due to toxic masculinity, but at least for myself I tend to just feel hollow at rather than wanting to cry. The type of emotion that makes you want to take a hot bath and lay in front of a fan for a couple hours. Though I do openly ball my eyes out when my pets die.
As a woman, it's wild how much hormones affect things. Most of the time, I can walk by a playground where kids are playing and not think much of it. But when my estrogen levels peak, the sound of happy children hits me deep - their laughter reminds me of the pure joy of childhood. How it feels to swing on a swing without a care. Having nothing to worry about except being tagged during a game. Knowing there are people who will look out for you, unconditionally, so you don't have to worry about affording rent or food or health care.
I'm instantly filled with the sense of happy freedom they're expressing, which is so beyond adulthood experience that it can overwhelm me. That's when I start to cry.
I'm well aware of the downsides of childhood. Still, in those moments, it's like the kids' collective happiness transfers straight into me and my brain doesn't know what to do with so much innocent bliss.
So, I can concede that there is likely at least some hormonal influence that results in different emotional perceptions for different people. I'm already very empathic, but peak estrogen seems to dial it up to 11.
Then toxic masculinity attempts to exaggerate such differences, while also misapplying the concept in order to separate people into assigned gender roles. Boys are absolutely socialized to suppress many of their emotions, while girls aren't subject to the same rule. Except, of course, with anger or public sadness. (Crying alone? That's expected. But not smiling while in public? That's a sin.)
Like most things about people, it's a mix of nature and nurture (and epigenetics.)
I rarely cry. I didn't even cry all that much when my dad died a few years ago, but I've been doing it more and more since. Maybe I needed some time for my emotions to loosen from their moorings. Odd things can set me off now. I bawled like a baby during Guardians of the Galaxy 3. I was alone, though. Had my wife or someone else been there, I probably would've just sucked it up and pushed it down.
This was me. I rarely cried, outside of pets or friends and family passing. Oddly, since having Covid, I have been super emotional and can tear up at stupid commercials. Kind of annoying, but my wife says I seem more human now lol.
I didn't cry when my father died...but I only ever met him about 5 times in my life so maybe that's got something to do with it.
In fact it was quite funny when I was told. It went a bit like this:
I got a phone call from my much old brother who basically said "Sorry to ruin your holiday but Dad's died".
"Oh shit, how is mum taking it?"
"...Why?"
"Because dad's dieeee...wait. Do you mean our father. Or our stepdad?"
"Father."
"Oh, ha. Nevermind then. Phew. Right I'm going skiing. See you when I get back."
(On a not so funny note our father was a wife and child beating serial cheater. So, ha, still glad he's dead.)
Now when my mum died I was ugly crying and wailing like a starving baby. And I still cry about it a few times a year every year for the last 10 years since she left us...but in private.
Amatures, I died inside in my 20's
Most men do cry and I think the myth that most of us don't is almost as damaging as the other social pressures that prevented the rest of us from ever doing so. It's not as socially acceptable for men to cry as it is for women, which is why when men do cry it's often in private.
Apparently i kept so much in that I had a stroke when i was forty.
---√^-^-^-^ /10 would do agian.
(That's a bad representation of an ekg)
You have it nailed into as a child that boys don't cry
I try to laugh about it
Cover it all up with lies
I try to laugh about it
Hiding the tears in my eyes
It’s okay to cry and feel all the feels. I had worked with a young boy who thought all of his feelings were “mad”. Truly there were so many feelings under the surface, but he only felt he could admit to being angry. Seems pretty common.
Well, I was physically abused when I cried, so now I just don't, and my therapist says that I am not doing terrible.
It's like a volcano. It just happens when it happens and there's no precisely predicting it or knowing exactly how it will all play out, but once the pressure builds up sufficiently, it'll be pretty spectacular and dramatic.
Alone. At home.
I cry almost every day bro
For me it's just difficult to cry, even when I want to. It's like you have to strike a really deep emotional chord to bring it out, and while I do hit it sometimes, it's not very often. I'll be damned though if there aren't random days here and there throughout the year where I feel very emotional, and even just thinking about how much I love my daughter makes me well up a little. Men are weird animals.
Meanwhile my wife will see a baby cow, and in the span of a millisecond she will see it's entire life and inevitable meat death, and begin crying mid-sentence. Fans at her face and goes, "And now I'm crying?!"
What I don't understand is how people cry for hours, past 5 minutes I am too exhausted to feel.
This is the ^shittiest^ way. 🥲
If you cry everytime you shit, you should eat more fiber. It will also make your health better and reduce the chances of heart failure.
Talking, exercise, sad or angry music, journaling, video games, shower, petting animals. If I am full blown sobbing that usually means I am in a deep depression which usually means I am not doing these things.
I b crying
Idk, lately I can't cry at all. Some real bad shit happened to me lately, but despite all I just couldn't let it out. Only thing that helped me unload some frustration was music. Thank the Gods for Heavy Metal.
I cry almost every day.
Bottles ~~everything~~ up 🍻
Why would I want to waste time crying?
Exactly what happened to my father
A laxative, I suppose.
Ah, yes, prescriptivism.
Men and women are different... The horror!
There is always the go of stuff that is annoying you.
Unless it is actually important, let it go, life is too short to dwell on unimportant shit.
Read some Stoic philosophy.
Testosterone reduces your ability to cry.
Ouch, maybe men should be open about their feelings & not give a damn about the shaming language
I don't think anyone here disagrees, but it's a lot harder to buck off those societal expectations than you may believe.
How about male solidarity
Male solidarity is actually increasing, you just assume it doesnt bc you dont see it. The problem is that every group actually shames men for being human. Especially if those groups dont like them for whatever flimsy reason. And if men try to demonstrate solidarity when standing up for one another, others try to gaslight them or straight up try to turn the herd against them by ridiculing them.
Stop that instead of blaming the lack of male solidarity. It exists. The problem is that ppl dont want to see it so they can continue to blame lack of “male solidarity” and try to tear it down when they do see it.
But there IS a lack of male solidarity, in the firm of male-on-male hostility
Mostly what you see on social media. There are more groups supporting men run by men, sizable shifts in their voting coordination, more legal representation coming forward to litigate when men are discriminated against, etc.
What you see isn’t the whole picture bc ppl dont care to see the whole picture.
Who said I was talking about Social media ?
Doesnt matter your source anyways. It doesnt change the fact that solidarity is improving amongst men. And voting track record is a far better indicator than what you’ve noticed around you.
Ouch, it is said than done. In order to be open about your feelings you need someone to be able to listen to you without judgment. Society expects men to be tough and while talking about your feelings you become vulnerable, because you give out some fears and insecurities that can be used against you.
Good, if the person you're talking to is your understanding family member. Bad, if it's some shady friend.
I'll probably get hate for this, but whatever.
Life is hard, the world is shitty, crying may help relieve the pain but it doesn't solve anything else.
Fucking figure it out. Fight everything, make your way, stop doing anything that isn't a real priority. Keep your mind on moving forward and pursue it with a singular dogged precision. No one is going to help you, just get your shit together and get it done.