Jay Elias | You can take it with you

"I have wasted Time, and now doth
Time waste me"
- Richard II

2002-06-02- 2:28 a.m.

If You Don't Cry... (Part IV)

(Before reading, please read Parts One, Two and Three.)
“‘Louis. Are you really bruised inside?’
‘Yes.’
‘Come back to me when they're visible. I want to see black and blue, Louis, I want to see blood. Because I can't believe you even have blood in your veins till you show it to me. So don't come near me again, unless you've got something to show.’”
- Tony Kushner
Like a lot of guys, I hate it when girls cry. I have a couple of minor phobias; heights and spiders petrify me. And I suppose it is the same when I see girls cry. I want to run, to panic, to flee. Of course, usually, I can’t.
There is a joke in the new movie About A Boy, where Toni Collette says to Hugh Grant that the trouble with guys is that unless we know how to fix something, unless we “know the name of a bloke down on Essex Road who can take care of that”, that we are like a deer in headlights. Any of you who are guys, or who know any, will of course know that this is true. Give me a problem where there is something that I can do, something I can suggest or say that will help, and I’m gangbusters. I’m all over it; it is done practically yesterday. But if it is something that is out of my hands, if it is just something that is the way it is, you might as well talk to a cat for all the good I can be.
It isn’t just our own futility that makes us hate seeing girls cry. Most girls learn at a very young age the power of their tears. And lots of them, especially in those early formative relationships, aren’t above using them as a tool in a sort of emotional blackmail. I feel badly, making that broad of a generalization; it is a nasty one to make. But ask the guys you know. You’ll find almost every single one had a girlfriend like that, at least once. A girl who would cry if you didn’t want to see some movie that she wanted to see, or who would break out the waterworks if when you bumped into her and her friends you didn’t kiss her hello.
None of this negates the biggest reason why guys hate to see girls cry. We hate it because most of the time, of course, it is our fault.
My ex-girlfriend Lynn used to cry all the time. She’d cry about her grades, about the nightly news, about sad scenes in movies and TV shows. She’d cry if she overcooked the rice. Sometimes, she didn’t even have a reason, at least not one she could think of. She would be sitting on the couch reading or looking under the bed for her cigarettes, and she’d suddenly break into tears. And of course, she’d cry every single time we had a fight.
For a long time it bugged the shit out of me. At first, I was just bewildered. I thought it must be because of something I had done, or that she was just depressed in general. After a while, I used to include it when we were having those quarterly meetings that some couples have, a sort of “state of the relationship” address. She’d bitch about my leaving the bathroom a mess and that I didn’t like it when she dropped by my weekly poker game, and I’d complain that she was always late for things and that she cried all the time. She felt bad that it made me so uncomfortable, but she tried to explain that it was just the way she was. She cried easy. She didn’t mean anything by it.
And after a long time, I got used to it. I wouldn’t panic when she cried; in fact, I wouldn’t react much at all. She could cry in front of the television and I’d go down to the kitchen to make a snack. That was a double-edged sword; sure, she cried easy, but that didn’t mean that she didn’t cry when it was a big thing too. I adjusted as best I could. I tried to learn to play it by ear. I worked on finding a balance between freaking out and tuning out.
As time went by, it bothered me less and less that she cried so much. The combination of love and familiarity can smooth over many rough edges. Things that would be truly heinous and unforgivable in a person we just met we are likely to forgive in our closest friends, if we even notice them. Of course the opposite is also true; small things that are hardly a nuisance become the reasons couples split and divorce. I’d be a much wiser person, not to mention a better boyfriend, if I knew why those two things are both true. I think, but I’m only guessing now, that it has something to do with happiness. When we’re happy, we’ll forgive almost anything; when we’re miserable, we’ll argue for hours over the slightest annoyance.
But at the time, with Lynn, I was happy, so it didn’t bother me much. And we were happy for a long time. When things changed, when we started to become unhappy, it wasn’t because of us. Not really. Things began to happen to us that made us unhappy. And I didn’t resent her crying then because they were terrible things. I didn’t even think about it. Of course she cried. And of course, it began to infuriate her that I didn’t cry over any of these things.
In the end, when she left me, she spat out to me that I needn’t worry, it wasn’t as if I was going to cry over her or anything. I wanted to. I wanted to so badly. And I tried. I would lie on my friend’s couch, and listen to sad love songs and songs we’d loved together and just try to bring tears. But I couldn’t do it. In the end, I lied to her and told her I had anyways. It didn’t bring her back either.

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If you want to make me
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Doesn't Take Much and That's Messed Up - 2004-03-15
Like Water Under Bridges - 2003-09-08
Jesus On The Dashboard - 2003-08-13
An Administrative Announcement - 2003-08-11
Don't Worry, It's Coming - 2003-08-02

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