Difference Between Men’s and Women’s Tears

Carol Mandi

25 June 2011

Nairobi — LET’S BE HONEST. Men are baffling.

To women at least. For one, let’s just take this issue of “real men cry only on the inside” apart.

Isn’t that just so sad and even a little bit twisted?

Not that we want them crying all the time, everywhere, but one little tear here and there every couple of years will go a long way in convincing us they are not heartless creatures. But nah!

They tough it up, staring dry-eyed through funerals, heartbreak and root canals.

The one exception to the rule is when their favourite football team loses. Then tears running profusely down their faces, they will let rip, “Mama! I’m ruined!”

Perhaps it’s a good thing women are rarely around to witness this show of misplaced loyalty. He won’t cry for you, but Manchester United, well that’s another story. Can you believe that some even go to the extent of committing suicide when their team loses a match?

Having a little boy of my own, who, the older he has grown the less he cries, I’m convinced something dries up in the tear ducts of boys by the time they are breaking their voices.

After a nasty accident in which he flew off the bicycle and landed in a heap on the gravel path, my son picked himself up and limped off behind the house to nurse his wounds.

I decided to investigate. “Oh, you poor thing! Are you crying?”

I asked, ready to smother him in a comforting motherly hug. “No!” he said vehemently amidst shuddering sniffs. Someone had already got to him with all that men don’t cry conspiracy.

But, if I’m honest, there was a little part of me that was proud of his show of toughness.

If it’s a conspiracy, then it is perpetrated at almost all levels of society and we have all bought into it.

You see, witnessing the tears of a grown man leaves most women horrified and very rarely, empathetic.

Sure, women would like men to show some emotion, or at the very least, the slight glistening of the eye on their wedding day and at the birth of their first child. They will go as far as to encourage men to loosen their grip on the muscles in the eye and just let everything out in moments of grief such as when they lose a loved one.

That’s about it.

We may wax lyrical about the 21st century man who is in touch with his female side but, truth be told, we are disturbed when he blows into a Kleenex during a romantic movie. We get so disturbed we might take flight from the movie theatre and him, never to return.

If you are a man, you must get suspicious when a woman encourages you to cry. She’s trying to find a reason to lose you.

Regardless of how persuasive she may be, please lock up those tear ducts with the biggest padlock you can find and throw away the key.

Yet, if men’s tears baffle women, women’s tears utterly confound men.

They are reduced to utter helplessness when female lips begin to pucker and their eyes well up.

“Please don’t cry. I will do anything! Anything!” they will plead and they mean it. It is far easier to deal with a roaring, advancing lion than a crying female. When it comes to the lion, at least you can kill it. “Why are you crying?” they will want to know.

Which is not a very clever question because we don’t always know why and we certainly don’t want to be interrupted with analytical prodding when we are giving in to our emotions.

Women cry when they are sad, hurt, disappointed, in pain, lonely or just proud that junior can now tie his shoelaces. Most men can get that. What stumps them is when we look up through wet lashes, blow our noses, sniff and then say, “I’m crying because I’m so happy!”

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