Boys Don’t Cry (They Sob)
By Thoughtis
Society would like for you to believe that males only cry three times in their entire lives. The first time occurring when they come out of their mother’s vagina. The second being on their wedding day (and even then, it’s a solitary tear that has been bullied out of them) and the third time can be, well, whenever you want. Maybe during a commercial for fresh laundry? Or in the privacy of your garage on a really bad day? Your options are truly limitless!
I call BS on this myth though considering that I cry at least once a year, sometimes more! Below are the following occasions that have not just prompted a good cry, they’ve warranted a legitimate sob fest.
1. I’m 19 and feel vaguely depressed. Are you there, Mom?
When I was living in San Francisco, I went through this period of time where I thought my body was going to fail me. Like I honestly believed that one day my limbs were just going to stop working and I wouldn’t be able to walk. It was all very weird. As a result, I started doing yoga and going to this Eastern massage place that would render my body catatonic after a 30 minute session. I don’t know what the hell they were doing to my body but I would leave this place feeling legitimately drugged. This one particular time I decided to call my mom after an appointment and then, for no reason at all, I just started to sob on the corner of Octavia amd Bush. I could tell my mom was just like, “Um, Rye? What’s happening?” The answer was that I didn’t really know. Ironically, right when I got over my fear of having something terrible happening to my body, I was hit by a car. Now there’s something to cry about.
2. Oh yeah, I got hit by a car
When I got hit by a car at the age of twenty, I spent the next month of my life alternating between feelings of utter numbness and violently sobbing until my father had to feed me three Percocet so I could stop choking on my tears. Grief is a strange thing. Everything had the ability to make me cry after my accident. Just seeing people walk around uninjured would cause my eyes to well up. I remember the first time I went outside after spending three weeks in the hospital. I made my father take me to lunch at Neiman Marcus because I thought seeing bad plastic surgery and paying twenty dollars for a salad would cheer me up but alas, I ended up breaking down midway through my Fashion Plate (That’s a real dish, by the way. It’s a half order of a salad with a side of fruit) and had to leave. Oh well. Luckily, everyone’s Botox prevented them from giving me strange looks.
3. I just broke up with my boyfriend and I’m trying so hard to cry in this cab right now
When I broke up with my boyfriend in high school, I was totally stunned. The first two days I tried my hardest to cry just so I could feel something, and I remember vividly this one time of sitting in a cab listening to “These Days” by Nico on my iPod and straining myself to get some tears. By the fourth listen, it worked and I decided to get out of the cab and walk home for dramatic effect.
4. I’m crying on Christmas and everyone’s yelling at me
Two Christmases ago my family went to Palm Springs to my uncle’s house, along with my grandmother and aunt, for some holiday festivities. What was supposed to be a time of bonding and family fun, however, turned out to be an absolute disaster of Lifetime movie proportions. To make a long dysfunctional story short, my family has a lot of issues that they refuse to acknowledge. Instead of having a conversation about a forgotten birthday gift from ten years ago, they choose to let their anger fester and manifest in strange ways, like having legitimate fights over who gets to eat the last slice of pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving. “Was it EVER about the pie?” Anyway, I don’t work this way. If something is wrong, I talk about it. So when the tension was rising between my family members, I finally broke down and started SOBBING at some weird holiday theme park in Palm Desert. In between my sobs, I gasped, “WHY DOESN’T THIS FAMILY EVER TALK ABOUT ANYTHING? WHY ARE WE ALL SO MEAN TO EACH OTHER?” Their reaction to my honesty was both hilarious and devastating. Like a true crazy person, my uncle started to scream at me for crying before falling into a blind rage that resulted in him kicking us out of his house in the middle of the night. (When he “came to”, my uncle claimed to have no recollection of ordering us out of his house, which is…creepy and a lie. A creepy lie.) Anyway, things have never been the same since. In fact we’ve been unofficially banned from Christmas this year. I’ve learned my lesson though. Instead of feeling things during the holidays, I just raid my parents medicine cabinet before any family event and fall into an apathetic stupor. It works. I haven’t cried since! (JK, Mom and Dad.)