What the fuck is this convention of telling people "Don't cry"?
It's literally bad advice. I'm not gonna be polemical about it. It's just... bad advice. Like telling someone who's hungry not to eat.
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yeah i think i was discouraged from crying a lot as a kid because others would perceive it as weakness (which isn't wrong)
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(but also that could be an excuse to get someone to stop displaying emotion that's making you uncomfortable)
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Yeah, totally! I think I got a similar message. I guess the message I'd give now to refine the one I got is: crying can be profoundly intimate and *actually* vulnerable, and so is best done within intimate trusting relationships (or alone)
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The one I got I rounded off to "Crying is bad. You cry too much. We don't care how you learn to stop - just stop."
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New polemical stance just dropped:
Crying should be seen as a basic human activity, like sex. In its own category and unusually vulnerable (like sex).
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i will say. it does tend to feel intimate for me with the direct audience, but i actually feel quite comfortable crying in public. eg saying goodbye to someone, having an intense conversation at a restaurant....
*normalize crying in public*
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yessssss, gf and i openly wept at the airport when i saw her off and it was ... right ... for the circumstances. i felt no shame about it
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