When was the last time you cried ?

So I had a hunch that young men and young women cry differently , i.e. their crying behaviours are different. A study of buying behaviours can get boring after some time, isn't it? Hence I chose to do a small survey on crying behaviour. I surveyed a set of youngsters. 52 of them responded, 33 men and 19 girls. Interesting were the facts ... Lets see !


I thought men can remember more vividly when they cried last time - my logic : Tears and anger matter a lot when they come out rarely and hence will be remembered a lot. Turns out otherwise. 100 % recollection ratio in girls and men fall slightly behind. Possible logic (?) : You don't forget the last time you had breakfast/dinner (or) quite seriously ... girls keep to their emotional disturbances even after they cry it out or it is a victory memorabilia kind .. to fondly remember that i cried it out and now I am free from that head-ache and now looking for the next reason to wet my eyes.


I asked them what made them cry the last time they did. Not surprisingly, a majority of girls said 'Personal Sorrow'. Surprisingly, 6 % boys said 'Social Injustice'. What do I take from this ? If a child is spotted begging in the streets, some men cry out of sympathy for the child but the girls go a step further and cry for their pledge-related brother (All Indians are my brothers and sisters!!!) ??? Both guys and girls have admitted to venting out their anger in tears in near equal proportions. I guess they should be the heated break-up arguments between them . 

Surprisingly, men admitted to be moved to tears by a touching book or movie three times more in ratios than women. And we always thought that the women need handkerchiefs while watching tear-jerkers !

Then I asked what are the most likely reasons that can make them cry. Certain surprises were answered. Women caught up with the tear-jerker count this time. And they outnumbered men in all 'Personal' - labelled categories now. What do we take ? Women tend to cry out at personal issues and take a lot of issues PERSONAL. And men do the vice versa ?

The next question is the recollection ratio - With what accuracy can you recollect how many times you cried in the last three years? Men led at the extremes. 100% accuracy should mean that the issues had a huge foreground and background and still itch in their minds. <30% recollection is the casual 'I don't even know if I cried' types. Women  lead hands down in the 75 % recollection rate. At hindthought, we can recollect our breakfast menu schedule with almost this accuracy right ? (!)

Then we see how they respond if they were caught moist-eyed by their peers. Sounds like an embarrassing situation right? They say that too loud and clear. Interestingly, men outnumber women in feeling embarrassment, shame, helplessness and even wish to reverse the memory of their peer. I guess, women are quite cool with crying maybe. And men do crave a lot for support than women mind you ! While the women nearly match the men in all the above feelings, they show a very peculiar character in feeling angry (!) when spotted. O, we just thought they were cool with it ... O oh, they also say that women can't be understood easily eh ?

Lets see how cool they are . Strangely both of them find not many problems when their onlooker peer goes on to say to others that he CRIED and actually uses the word CRIED. I, for one, have seen many men evade the word even if spotted, blaming the dust and trivialities. Seems people are cool with it on the surface and then feel the heat inside. 

I remember an occasion two years ago in a dingy boys hostel room where nearly 30 men were packed in a lights-off room watching a movie called 'A Millionaire's First Love' (not porno , the lights-off is for the theatre effect :P ). After the end of the movie, lights went on and every single man in that room had tears in his eyes and believe me, every single man wiped the tears and blamed dust almost as a reflex action. Since everyone was on the same side, we came to a consensus of convenience that there was a lot of dust in the room and it had to be cleaned soon !

For one, men and women, though not distant as between Mars and Venus, seem to have distinct crying behaviours, distant enough to be in the opposite sides of the earth's spectrum.

So, when was the last time you cried ? 

Now say Cheers

GS