I'm an emotional dude
 

Raised by a single parent mom, you know, you don't worry about showing your emotions

When I was a kid I read something about some study showed that men holding back crying was a tremendous tension and lowered their life span

I think I read that when I was 8 or something

And now I realize that it was not so very scientific but was reported because it was the zeitgeist of the time

We were in a time when both the tragedy of war and the new reality of a better and longer life were becoming apparent

Actual toughguy men who were previously needed to do terrible gruntwork were no longer in high demand

Now we were needed to evolve and become leaders by doing thinking work in offices

Then I was born and my father died and I was raised by mom and watched as she cried and cried

I could not help but learn to cry myself at the terrible sadness of life

I am sometimes as sensitive as that little child.

Is that bad? I don't think so.

Nope. Not bad at all.

Being real is a very good thing.

It's interesting. I think being emotional is not a bad thing at all, and I think it's good to express your feelings. I encourage it in my kids. But I'm not that way myself.

I think I've cried 3-4 times in the last 20 years. I think I've gotten really mad about the same number of times. But I'll complain about stuff. That's kind of like being mad.

There are more emotions than just the negative ones though. I think I express the positive emotions fairly frequently.

I don't know. Writing about this is requires thinking about it, and thinking about emotions is kind of doing it wrong. You feel emotions, you don't think about them.

Thinking back, my family didn't do emotions much. My dad certainly didn't.

I'm an emotional dude as well, and honestly I don't like it. Woman aren't attacked by it, being emotional hasn't helped me do anything it is just a burden. Now I can't truly stop being emotional without feeling sycophantic.

I think I have cried 3-4 times, in the last two days.
And of course I also wear them on my sleave , so when I'm happy I act happy, when I'm sad I act sad ect, ect.

I had an emotion once ... I didn't like it ... make that twice.

Emotions are fine after one has learned how to channel them; unless, one is allergic* to emotions like tw.

*(not a true allergy, just an idiosyncratic reaction).

I cry more than most dudes, but considerably less than most chicks. It's been at least 6 months since the last time I can remember doing it. And the vast majority of the time, I am crying not over something specific or sad, but because I am overwhelmed with frustration.

I cried at the end of Time Travelers Wife.

I cry as well, though not that often (maybe once or twice an average year). When the need arises, I will only do so when I feel I am in a safe environment.

Nothing wrong with being emotional, as long as you don't let it be debilitating.

I'm a woman (duh) and yeah, I cry. I cry real easy about stupid stuff and it really pisses me off. I cry so often about God knows whatever hits me at the time - nobody can even tell when I only have watering eyes from yawning. It's stupid.

And I'm not a *sad* person most of the time. I don't cry 'cause stuff is sad. That would make sense.

I can only count maybe twice or three times ever my husband cried. And it was deaths. My dad, my mom, his mom. In fact he gets mad at me when I cry. Which makes me get mad at him and cry even more. It's seriously stupid.

I always told my kids - especially my boy - that it's okay to cry when you're hurt or sad, and it would be kind of silly not to. But my son's 14 and tough from wrestling, in which boys cry when they lose and everyone makes fun of them, so he ain't gonna cry. :(

He was an emotional dude
Raised on Kleenexes
He couldn't help feeling at times
There was a little more to life...


eta: Holy CATS! It's Juniper!

I think many of us, such as emotional dudes, may be experiencing anomie.

And since the rate of changes to human culture is exponentially accelerating, as observed by Ray Kurzweil and others, I don't know where this is taking us. I don't know if social norms are something which will be possible to continue existing.

or the range over which we measure our society and judge norms by are so much smaller, soceity is tolerant of many micro norms. Instead of norms being the country you live in, or city or town, it might be within your household, or the peope you share an office with, or in an online gaming guild or forum. Instead of having to fit into larger societal norms, it's easier to drift around and find a micro society where your internal norms are the group norms.
And at the extreme, the size of the group is 1 you are your own norm.

http://www.tvacres.com/images/greeting_norm2.jpg

:p:

So when you walk into a bar, you yell "NORM!"