An Uncomfortable Situation

I have no idea what to do right now.

The other day a girl (the head editor actually) walked into the office of the school paper where I moonlight and did the damnedest thing. She started crying without giving me or anyone else in the room any kind of warning or signal that she was going to alter the emotional climate of the room with the force of an asteroid crashing onto the Earth’s surface. Of course, it was not until the universal and necessary series of random stares at her face that I determined she was actually crying. I was, quite frankly, shocked. I even whispered, “Is she crying?” to no one in particular or I guess myself rather. My mental state went from standby to shocked and uncomfortable in seconds. Why had this happened? I was minding my own business staring into a landscape of nothing with my mind running on idle easiness.

Well it turns out that, simply put, a woman crying is one of the most uncomfortable, awkward, and nerve racking situations a man can be in. You are free to keep reading or stop because I have summed up the most prevalent feeling in every man’s life in one sentence.

I guess you could say we tackle the problems of the universe on this website free of charge. You are welcome.

But, it is not just the tears that cause our blood pressures to rise to a level that should jettison our bodies into orbit or that causes the nervous dancing of our gazes with the hopes we will not have to make eye contact. It is also the suddenness in which most woman cry and in almost any situation. It also stems from the sheer reality that we have no idea what to do when you women are crying. I always remember not being able to remember thinking anything at all whenever I am in the company of a crying woman.

This is foreign to us because most men will not cry in any situation. There are those men who will cry and only under the most dire and distressing conditions and, only, in an underground cave three hundred miles out to sea. We can acknowledge that there are men out there who will readily cry at the least emotionally trying situations but then we would have to broaden our scope of what a man is and I do not have the authority to change definitions of anything; yet.

Women will, however, cry at a lot more things and in front of a lot more people. I am not sure if this is because women are more comfortable crying, if society/culture helps permeate the idea of the emotionally expressive and connected woman, or if the burst to cry strikes at such innocuous moments that you have no choice but to acquiesce. Perhaps the answer lies in some scientifically sound hormone, chemical make-up difference theory, but I do not have time to speculate the improbable and improvable.

There are several courses of action a man can take when it comes to impromptu and unnecessary outpourings of emotion.

One of the best options for dealing with the “distraught and showing it woman” is to ignore it and hope it all goes away. I would not recommend this to the committed man alone with his woman, but I have heard that for some men this strategy actually works with their girlfriends/wives. To these men I ask: where did you find your super special robot woman who does not mind that you pay no attention to her emotional needs? I would like to place an order now.

I have never been successful in the “ignoring it” tactic for reasons that escape me. My doctor did tell me it might be because my period always syncs up with my girlfriend’s after we have dated for a while. This, of course, leads to crying just for the sake of it or because I see someone else looking sad, happy, argumentative, or alive.

This option is best for men who find themselves in the company of a woman who they do not know well or, if, there are other women in the room who can expertly tackle the problem. They are much better equipped to deal with the crying woman since they can understand the language. It is called “Unreasonable” or “Crazy” in the local vernacular and linguistic anthropologists are still looking for its source in the history of human speech. (I should write for the Honeymooners with my up-to-date take on woman, their physiology and their emotions.)

Of course, we men could always sit down, talk with her, and try to scratch an ounce of reality or reason out of her, whether we know her or not. But this course of action often takes hours upon hours to work out and crack the code containing the reasons behind her current emotional meltdown. It will also leave you feeling numb, dizzy, tired and a bit sad. It’s not for the faint of heart and I would not recommend it to anyone. There are those men that do this quite well and they are distinguished by their weathered, beaten-dog look. You will find them at malls, school functions, dance clubs, and at the houses of their significant other’s friends where they know no one.

If you are using this tactic with females that you are not dating prepare to be labeled a homosexual or have questions raised about your intentions. However, if you really just want to be friends with her then this is great for you and your nonexistent sex life. Also, if you really just want to be friends with her then you can return your penis along with your nut sack at any hospital. Do not worry; they will end up in the hands of a good, reasonable man who will utilize his new gifts to their fullest extent.

No matter how you handle the situation, under no circumstances can you cry with her because then she will know that you have emotions and try to draw them out of you at inopportune times, like your wedding or birth of your children. No man deserves that level of embarrassment.

Hear this son, women will feel like crying sometimes for no reason and then proceed to do so. I have heard a women say, “I just felt like crying today so I did. I do not know why.” After my head stopped spinning I decided I would not pursue the issue any further for fear of hitting the poor girl with brain matter or my jaw.

I was awestruck by this response because whenever I feel like I might cry I just tuck in way deep down into my gut. I then wait a few days and expunge these thoughts with alcohol and shallow conversation with a bunch of guys whose breaths stink with the toxins of repressed emotion.

In case you were wondering, I did do the double take to make sure our editor was crying and upon confirmation began to nervously twitch in my chair. I stared around the room for a while and made nervous eye contact with another guy in the room. After about five minutes of this, I gathered my stuff, stood up, and announced aloud that I would be taking my leave for the rest of the day. It was the right response to the most awkward of situations.