Sorry, that's exactly what I meant - not being clear enough here :(
Women have a huge advantage in this stuff purely because if we express emotions it's expected, if men do some people are surprised ("You mean they're human?") Conditioning. Stinks. Even now fgsds



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If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.

Dave R - did you hear that sharp intake of breath from all the other men on the Fforum?

Holly

Could you possibly lay off the "me are s**t" comments for a day or two?

It's getting boring.



ps Apologies to everyone else for being the first(?) to post a narky comment, but I'm tired of being labelled as insensitive just because of my sex. I didn't expect here of all places.



Post Edited (07-11-03 23:11)

Jesus saves; Buddha does incremental backup.

It seems I have a funny way of agreeing with Alison, as that was all that was intended. I can't speak for other men, I've only ever been me.

I remember at one particularly terrible juncture walking all the way back to my hall in tears, and thinking, now you've got to go through the coffee lounge, put on a face.

And then I thought, you are just part of a bloody massive conspiracy.

So I never put on the face, and no one took a blind bit of notice of the tears. But if I lock up, who else will follow?

The 'real' Dr Jim Slip is so far withdrawn from his feelings I've seen him cry whilst exhibiting no other outward sign of emotion, talking in a level voice. It's freaky. He doesn't even know he's having emotions, they are so far repressed. Underneath he's one of the nicest people you'll ever meet, but he can't bear anyone finding out and puts on an act that has fooled himself for as long as I've known him.

PS in case anyone is confused here, I'm strictly heterosexual. Others do as they please.

Amazing isn't it? You shouldn't have to put up a disclaimer that you're not gay if you admit to having emotions when you're male. Life's very bewildering... *tears hair out, tries to glue it back, goes to bed for a month, bald*



_ _ _ _ _

If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.

My dad, when my mum died, used to cry in public, just couldn't help it. Never seen anything sadder. But you couldn't help him - he was so ashamed of it that if you turned to him he'd try and slap your hand away so you wouldn't notice... but he's seventy and it just wasn't something men did then.



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If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.

Guy - Sorry? What? not aware that I've posted anything to give the impression that all men are anything but warm loveable human beings. However, I stand by what I just said, men generally are uncomfortable discussing their feelings and I had a mental picture of other male forumites suddenly examining their shoes. I don't mean that to be offensive and don't see why it is. I'm not saying men don't feel just that they don't talk about what they feel. I have found that men can make good listeners but that they find it hard to talk about their own emotions, Ive recently been talking to a female relative who lost a baby, her husband holds and comforts her but six months later he still hasn't spoken of how this had made him feel. Nobody would be foolish enough to believe he hasn't felt anything but their different needs, ie. hers to talk and his need to internalise it is pushing them apart when they need to be close. as a second example my husband plays footie with the same blokes for 15years, in January one of their wives died after a long illness. They still all play football and hubby tells me that no one knows what to say to the bloke.
Obviously somehow I've irkked (sp?) you and therefore Im very sorry and instead of posting with my tongue in my cheek I'll just bite it.

I'm really sorry about that.

Perhaps the tendency is to think that crying is a sign of giving in? Anything but.

It's not a thing to be done as a weapon or a tactic or because anyone else would like you to - and I wonder how many times women's crying is thought of in that light --- but when the urge arises, it's there for a purpose. Afterwards your brain is clear of many things that obscured your vision before.

There are endless things going around about all this, but I note a study showed that when girls and boys of an early age (was it two? three?) are exposed to the sound of a baby crying, the boys get more upset than the girls. If it were suggested that boys begin by being more emotional than girls but blow a fuse and withdraw to cope, I wouldn't be arguing. And of course they aren't encouraged to handle things openly.

Actually it's not something that happens to me very often - it's just that I allow for it when it comes naturally. I think I'd be a lot more wound up today if I didn't.

Sadly I'd have to agree with that, splat (OK, Alison then - except I kinda liked the alliteration!) It tooks years for it to dawn on me that despite being 100% male heterosexual, it was a blessing and not a curse to be so sensitive and intuitive. To the "lads" I always was the weirdo hippy in the corner with the strange taste in music, so oddly enough I didn't have to convince them I was anything but myself anyway; a figure of fun to be pointed at (fine by me, so long as the pointing didn't turn to prodding). it was the girls who seemed to carry the weight of emotional baggage and preconceptions about how men should behave however. I'm not sure I ever really got over a particularly hard knock I received as a teenager from a girl I'd fallen helplessly in love with (a nasty habit I've still yet to break) who dumped me on the basis that I was "too nice". She was stabbed in a brawl a few months afterwards *shrugs* maybe that's what she wanted, who knows?

Incidentally, that photo in another thread that I added a link to earlier (or was it yesterday?), the second one in the series of photos of me with food on my head, featured in the background my closest, if not exactly nearest, friend - Jeff Kelly. Jeff lives in Seattle (USA), about 14 hours travelling time from here, and yet somehow we have always been there for each other when we've needed each other most, or at least ever since we first became friends (more like brothers really) back in 1985. Jeff's a much-admired singer, songwriter and musician - if you're interested you can read more about his work at the following link: [www.cameraobscura.com.au]

The photo was taken a couple of years back when I was in the midst of a nervous breakdown, not helped by a somewhat disastrous relationship which ended rather suddenly and spectacularly in the stable yard of a farm we shared, an event which involved much muck being thrown both literally and metaphorically (even the pitchfork itself was launched towards me at one stage as I recall!). The relevance of all this being, as I drove away I turned on the car radio and was greeted with the news that an aircraft had apparently just that minute crashed into the World Trade Center. Flights to the States were @#$%& in the aftermath of those horrific events so I basically hopped on a plane as soon as I could, turned up at Jeff's place and spent a few weeks helping him diminish his supplies of Xanax (he's a self-confessed hypochondriac manic depressive bless him), a particularly potent anti-depressant; not recommended but certainly an effective treatment in the short term if you don't mind spending a while in a kind of blissful state of cloud-cuckoo land unawareness....



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* I'm backing the campaign to get the official Stalker for 2007 evicted *

I once raised some eyebrows in a conversation by stating that if I ever got married again, it would be to a man who had some empathy (which, of course, automatically also assumes the ability to discuss his own feelings).

I was told that this simply wasn't a masculine characteristic. Piffle - there is no reason why it shouldn't be. My best male friend, the excellent Alan Stevens of www.kaldorcity.com, is highly empathic, and if you ever talk to him on the phone you will be left in absolutely no doubt about what his feelings are at that moment. No, he's not gay; no, he's not abnormal (well, at least not in any negative respect - in certain ways he's quite crazy enough for the Fforum, but I won't go into that here!). He's just a very nice man who's successfully broken out of the standard conditioning, and I'm not the only one to have greatly benefited from it. Alan did me a wonderful service while I was still in shock after my husband walked out; he managed to make me laugh. Regularly. He knew exactly how I was feeling, and acted accordingly. The man's a hero.

Oh, yes, and he's not afraid to cry. It's all interrelated.



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

Can't think who said men can't have empathy, Sarah - unless it was Jim Slip?

I've been 'too niced' long ago as well. Looking back I can see what was meant, but cannot express it.

Crying isn't the full set. When the occasion demands it, I can hardball. When people are depending on you, you have to be able to rise to it. Having children can make a huge difference to your perspective.

Space precludes. Also time precludes as I will be keeping Sarah up phone and computer in situ at her place.

Suicide is apparently the biggest cause of death amongst men under thirty, I remember reading, and yes, it is higher in men than women - although interestingly self-harm is higher in women.

I'm not sure I count as sensitive or not. I'm just myself, and anyone putting some kind of definition to it is welcome to their opinion. I don't like being in emotionally charged situations in public, although I've been there often enough...



Post Edited (07-12-03 01:46)

PSD

==========

This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

I think there's also an interrelation between intelligence and sensitivity, especially in men. Maybe they're just smart enough to know you can't hold everything in!

I think it all boils down to chemical reactions in the brain and how the body handles them. Crying is a normal biological function that serves to relax the body and clear much of the stress of a situation. That in turn frees the brain to think more clearly and come up with better solutions. Ergo, crying is good!

I do have to say though, there is an awful lot of conditioning in society that says men are not allowed to cry. And I'll admit, I was a bit shocked the first time I saw my husband cry. I just didn't expect it. But I've come to really respect the fact that he CAN cry. To me, that makes him more of a man...a man in the human sense. I think before I kind of suspected that men were actually a different species! :)

Guy, I don't think Holly meant anything as a snipe against men, just a comment on how society tends to see them. Not a judgement though...at least it didn't come across to me that way. I have a feeling that most of the women here really respect men who are "sensitive"...that's cuz we're a bunch of smarties! We know quality men when we read them! (and we know you've had a tough week between work and not feeling well, so maybe you're a bit touchier that normal. Trust me *I* understand! Did you send me your cold!?! LOL I really REALLY hope you feel better soon!)

My apologies to everyone, and particularly to Holly, for that outburst.

It's just that recently , Holly has made a couple of comments about men in general and their behaviour with which I wouldn't necessarily quarrel (if that's her experience, then fair enough -- it's certainly true of some of my male friends, and definitely not of others), but which don't apply to me. And that irks -- because they seemed to be stated as absolutes, and I'd like to think that everyone is capable of changing.

I don't think I fit that stereoype, nor, I think, do most of the men who post here.

However, maybe I'm being humourless, but I don't believe that most of us would have accepted a post along the lines of 'well if you were a woman, you'd behave in such-and-such a way'. Which is in effect what I felt I would have been doing (though in reverse, if you see what I mean) by not commenting.

So I wasn't really hugely offended, but I felt I should say say something -- sorry I went over the top by snapping at you, Holly.

So nyah! Conkers* at dawn if you don't agree.

PS Twila -- hope your cold gets better soon! (it seems to be a 10-day type, on thre bizarre assumption it's the same one!)

* in case this is a purely English thing -- conkers is a game played by small boys smashing their nuts together. Erm. Let me rephrase that -- in the game of conkers, two players take a horse chestnut (which may or may not have been boiled or pickled in vinegar for 6 months beforehand), hang it from a length of string, and take _turns_ swinging the two chestnuts against each other. The player whose chestnut is the first to smash is the loser. [edited to avoid sniggering in the back row. It didn't work, did it?]



Jesus saves; Buddha does incremental backup.

There's even a world championship.

In France conkers has a registered sporting body, over here you don't need one. The Worlds are held in Ashton.

I'm not making this up! Honest! Go here and see in badly translated French...



Post Edited (07-12-03 02:29)

PSD

==========

This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

What about toe-wrestling, or the world series of Paper Scissors Rock, there is a website, I might post it in the inevitable Dodo diet 2.



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Those who forget the pasta are doomed to reheat it.

Dont' forget thumb-wrestling either...

To add to the debate, I'm a female who deals with things by repressing, generally. I don't get shout at people ('cept my parents), and only about two people have ever seen me cry. I don't cry much generally - probably about twice a year, and one of them will be sheer frustration.

i'm perfectly happy to talk about other people's feelings, and I'm quite good at empathising and spotting what mood people are in and dealing with it accordingly, but I don't really talk about my feelings to much of a degree. And I quite like it like that, actually, but these days everyone seems to think you *must* talk about everything in order to deal with it. It's great if men (and women) who want to cry can cry, but I don't necessarily think there's anything wrong if they don't.

Incidentally, I don't think about things much either. I just put them to the back of my mind and get on with life, and they don't usually come back to bite me on the ass like people say they will...

All I'm saying, really, is that repression works for me, but I occasionally feel like I'm being pressured to emote all over the place, because that's what's "in" these days.



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Do something pretty while you can...

Guy - you can put your conkers away, I'm fairly thick skinned so no damage sustained and if you'd been any subtler I probably wouldn't have noticed.
Can't actually do conkers, rubbish at hand/eye co-ordination, much to the disgusts of older son. I just get to do the throwing big sticks into trees to knock 'em down.
erm, if the other thing I posted which niggled was the 'men find a cook and maid by getting married thing' it was just an aside due to having read big bit in the newspapers about the fact that something like 87% of housework is still done by women eventho more and more women are working full time.(I read it in a paper it *must* be true.) and before you all feel the need to post I swear I believe all the men on the fforum see housework as a shared chore split equally between partners of both genders ........oh blah I cant do political correctness...........just shout at me when I offend it's simpler.

Dave Rainbow has programmed his own website entirely from scratch, using relational databases so that it can create a page from search criteria rather than being stuck with a fixed-page format. He taught himself all the code he needed to do it. It's a work of genius.

He still boggled at me when I bought him a packet of cake mix as an encouragement to take the first tentative steps towards learning to cook, though. He thinks such wisdom is too wonderful for him!



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah