[rdgrad15]

Does anyone have any discomfort showing emotions in front of others? I do agree with the fact that it is good to be able to let your emotions out and that there is nothing wrong with crying in front of a close friend, whether it's a guy or a girl. It is supposed to get the stress off our chests. But I've heard where even though people may claim that they are more than willing to be there for someone and they are okay with someone crying in front of them, when it actually happens, many people report how uncomfortable they truly felt and some may even go as far as to say they wish the person didn't cry in front of them and hope it won't happen again.

In a way, this probably has more to do with them than the person crying, but knowing that there are people that may not respond in a good way could cause people to be afraid of showing emotion in front of others. I am afraid of this since in the past, there has been some people who all I did was announce that I had to attend a funeral. Didn't even cry, wasn't that affected since I didn't have a close relationship with the deceased and the death was expected. All that happened was someone asking what I was up to and I told them I was preparing to head back home from college to attend a funeral.

That person avoided me and wouldn't talk to me until after I came back and even had to convince her that I wasn't even affected too much. That had me very alarmed. What if I had lost someone really close? What if I broke down? That could have resulted in an embarrassing moment. I worry that someone else, even a good friend, could react the same way. I'm not friends with her anymore due to her not being a true friend in the first place, but I do know other people who admit that having someone show emotions in front of them, even a close friend, makes them very uncomfortable and sometimes cause them to shut down.

Does anyone feel uncomfortable with people showing emotions in front of you? I get that it can be uncomfortable but if someone reacts to a point where they avoid someone who cried in front of them, it makes you not want to confide in them anymore. I know I'm very weary about who I confide in. Last thing I would want is for someone to shut me out just because I showed emotion if it was for a good reason. Do you feel comfortable showing emotions in front of others, even close friends? Like I said, I know it's good to let it out, but it seems that there are quite a bit of people out there that just can't handle having someone cry in front of them which could result in people hiding their emotions.

[Yaowen]

Dear rdgrad15,

Thanks for raising this topic. I think it is an important one. Hopefully many people will see it and respond with their own personal experiences and opinions.

Looking back over my life, I think I have been someone who has experienced both of the things you mentioned, being someone who has shown emotions to others and someone who has reacted negatively when others have expressed emotions in front of me.

The human mind is very mysterious and it is difficult to understand why it does what it does in us. The fact that we are such unique individuals in so many ways seems to increase this difficulty. Mapping the various patterns in such a complex thing, maybe the most complex in the world, is an ongoing process.

Sometimes it seems that people in each age can tend to think of their time as close to the end of things in the sense that science has mapped out all the important features and that later generations are just going to fill in some of the little details. It could be that we are really at the beginning of things when it comes to the social sciences and that really big revolutionary insights are still far away in the future. Of course this could be wrong too.

In any case, I think there are "reasons" why people are more comfortable or less comfortable with the expression of emotions in themselves and others. I don't think [and again I could be wrong] that this is a dichotomous matter. I think comfort and tolerance and appreciation and their opposites when it comes to the expression of emotions constitute a range or continuum where people have various degrees of comfort and discomfort about this and also that this might change with what is going on in a person's life at the surface or more deeply.

I know people who seem to have different tolerance levels for my expressions of emotion. And it sometimes inhibits me. I think there is perhaps some truth in the idea that childhood experiences have some relation to all this as well as genetics and so on. I was in a McDonald's restaurant one day and a parent was scolding his son. His son began to cry. The father said: "Don't you dare cry. Don't be a baby." Perhaps some people have been deeply conditioned to a kind of stoic pattern of seeing things and reacting to things? And such people can regard the open expression of emotion as a sign or weakness or danger. I think there are cultural differences too.

Tolerance does not seem to me to be something that is in great supply in human beings. Virtue requires effort. I realize this is probably a gross oversimplification of what is deep and rich and complex. I think there are not only degrees of truth but probably degrees of error too. This is something discussed by modern logicians. To say that human beings have two fingers on each hand is an error, but it is a "greater" error to say that human beings have 400 fingers on each hand. Not sure this discussion in pure logic has filtered down to the social sciences yet, at least as far as I can see.

Of course I am conscious that I could be wrong about all of this. I think it was Aristotle who described an opinion as one half of a contradiction that a person holds while having some doubt about whether the other half of the contradiction might be true . . . or something to that effect.

I am sorry if people do not appreciate and treasure you for your uniqueness. It sometimes seems that for many people, their default attitude is "could be better, but isn't better" and few people have a default attitude of "could be worse, but isn't worse, thank goodness." Appreciation, gratitude and feeling lucky or blessed do not seem to be most people's default attitude.

I hope you and all of us meet people and have friendships that are more tolerant of our uniqueness. I wish you only the very best!

Sincerely yours, Yao Wen

[rdgrad15]

Originally Posted by Yaowen

Dear rdgrad15,

Thanks for raising this topic. I think it is an important one. Hopefully many people will see it and respond with their own personal experiences and opinions.

Looking back over my life, I think I have been someone who has experienced both of the things you mentioned, being someone who has shown emotions to others and someone who has reacted negatively when others have expressed emotions in front of me.

The human mind is very mysterious and it is difficult to understand why it does what it does in us. The fact that we are such unique individuals in so many ways seems to increase this difficulty. Mapping the various patterns in such a complex thing, maybe the most complex in the world, is an ongoing process.

Sometimes it seems that people in each age can tend to think of their time as close to the end of things in the sense that science has mapped out all the important features and that later generations are just going to fill in some of the little details. It could be that we are really at the beginning of things when it comes to the social sciences and that really big revolutionary insights are still far away in the future. Of course this could be wrong too.

In any case, I think there are "reasons" why people are more comfortable or less comfortable with the expression of emotions in themselves and others. I don't think [and again I could be wrong] that this is a dichotomous matter. I think comfort and tolerance and appreciation and their opposites when it comes to the expression of emotions constitute a range or continuum where people have various degrees of comfort and discomfort about this and also that this might change with what is going on in a person's life at the surface or more deeply.

I know people who seem to have different tolerance levels for my expressions of emotion. And it sometimes inhibits me. I think there is perhaps some truth in the idea that childhood experiences have some relation to all this as well as genetics and so on. I was in a McDonald's restaurant one day and a parent was scolding his son. His son began to cry. The father said: "Don't you dare cry. Don't be a baby." Perhaps some people have been deeply conditioned to a kind of stoic pattern of seeing things and reacting to things? And such people can regard the open expression of emotion as a sign or weakness or danger. I think there are cultural differences too.

Tolerance does not seem to me to be something that is in great supply in human beings. Virtue requires effort. I realize this is probably a gross oversimplification of what is deep and rich and complex. I think there are not only degrees of truth but probably degrees of error too. This is something discussed by modern logicians. To say that human beings have two fingers on each hand is an error, but it is a "greater" error to say that human beings have 400 fingers on each hand. Not sure this discussion in pure logic has filtered down to the social sciences yet, at least as far as I can see.

Of course I am conscious that I could be wrong about all of this. I think it was Aristotle who described an opinion as one half of a contradiction that a person holds while having some doubt about whether the other half of the contradiction might be true . . . or something to that effect.

I am sorry if people do not appreciate and treasure you for your uniqueness. It sometimes seems that for many people, their default attitude is "could be better, but isn't better" and few people have a default attitude of "could be worse, but isn't worse, thank goodness." Appreciation, gratitude and feeling lucky or blessed do not seem to be most people's default attitude.

I hope you and all of us meet people and have friendships that are more tolerant of our uniqueness. I wish you only the very best!

Sincerely yours, Yao Wen

Yeah I agree. I do believe a lot of it has to do with how they were raised. Like the example you gave with the child crying at McDonald's. I've seen that scenario play out many times, even happened to me when I was younger. I was taught that under no circumstances, even the death of someone close to you, should you ever cry. It's okay to show that you feel bad or feel sorry, but never true tears of sadness of any kind. I grew up starting to believe it but then I realized that it is actually okay to cry. But yeah, some people may not be comfortable having someone else cry in front of them due to their beliefs. You really never know how someone will react until the time comes. They may say they don't mind but you never truly know for sure.

I think it is similar to how people state how they would react in an emergency situation. Like, I've heard people state that if their house was burning down, they would not leave until everyone was out and they got as much of their personal belongings out as humanly possible. But if the day comes where their house really is burning down, there's a possibility that they won't act on their thoughts to stay in as long as possible, instead, they will most likely flee, maybe alerting others on their way out. Same thing when it comes to dealing with someone who is going through a period of sadness. They may claim they will always be there for them, but when the time comes, they may flee, possibly telling someone else to handle the person who is sad.