Midtown Humanity On Parade, Vol. 3
When it comes to crying in public in New York City, you have two schools of thought: 1) that it’s terribly lonely and sad that nobody ever stops to ask after the cryer; and 2) that it’s a freeing relief that nobody ever stops to ask after the cryer.
Both schools assume the same thing, which isn’t in fact true; I’ve battled various facial rainstorms and lost, and occasionally a stranger will inquire if I’m okay. But if that doesn’t happen, and it mostly doesn’t, it’s fine with me — I really can’t stand crying in front of people and the communal decision to pretend it’s not happening is a gift, in my view.
But when I see someone else crying, I never know what to do. Would she like someone to check her okay, hand her a tissue? Would that little kindness, rote though it is, help her? Or is she like me, better left alone until she gets home and can put cold spoons on her eyes?
There is a girl sitting in Rockefeller Plaza right now, an Asian girl, and she is bereft. She isn’t sobbing out loud, but she’s not trying to disguise her tears, either. She’s not even wiping them away, just letting them roll down. I kept watching her, thinking I should give her Kleenex and then remembering I didn’t have any on me anyway. In the end, I just went back inside.
Weepers of the city: We haven’t abandoned you. We see. We just don’t know if you want us to.
Tags: city living
The only time I ever cried in public in NYC was two weeks after 9/11, upon viewing a missing persons billboard in Washington Square Park. Seeing my lost friend’s face just made me lose it. No one offered me solace, for either everyone else was crying too or everyone had run out of tissues at that point.
So, I am reading this at work, and I just went to close the browser, and instead I clicked on the Print button. Wheeeee! Luckily I realized immediately that I had done it, so I did not have to explain to my boss later on why I printed up 13 pages of anecdotes about crying. That would have been swell, though.
I’m terrible about crying, and can do so at the drop of a hat. My Dad always says I was “born close to the water”.
My favorite(?) crying in public story was when I was at this nice restaurant with my boyfriend, and he broke up with me there, figuring I wouldn’t make a scene. Jerk. Anyway, after he left I ended up sitting at the bar crying into my drink, when a shot of my favorite liquor was put in front of me.
I looked up, and a guy I knew from the restaurant where I worked was sitting right by me. I hadn’t even noticed him. He sat with me the rest of the night, buying me shots, and letting me blubber and rant on about what an a-hole my ex was. He then paid the tab, put me in a cab, and sent me home.
A couple of months later, I ended up returning the favor when his fiancee’ dumped him. :)
When I was 6 months pregnant with my first child, I had chronic, endless morning sickness and was working a horrible, horrible job. I was walking uphill the 5 blocks it took me to get to the 116th train station and I just stopped, leaned against a building, and began to cry over how absolutely lousy I felt. An oddly familiar-looking man in a bathrobe who was walking by looked over, and wordlessly handed me a tissue, then went into a trailer parked on the street. Strange, but stranger things have happened in New York City. I felt better, and as I walked past Columbia University to the train station I saw a ton of camera crews, lights and more trailers. Then I realized that the man in the robe was actually Willem Dafoe, there to shoot the first Spider Man. Bizarre NY experience. Thanks, Willem.
I haaaaaaaaaaaaaate crying in front of people, so the few times I’ve cried in public I did my best to get myself under control or get someplace private as quickly as possible. If someone had approached me, it just would have made me feel worse and more helpless, because usually when I cry it’s out of frustration. That said, if I did have to interact with someone, I think the tissue pass would be the best thing. “Are you OK?” is probably safe, too, because then I can nod and wave you off without speaking.
Rosmerta, good for you for realizing what many people can’t seem to figure out. It might never have occurred to me either, but my blind housemate says that taking a blind person’s arm is probably the most unhelpful thing you could possibly do. No one likes being grabbed unexpectedly, and, more importantly, if the person ISN’T lost and you move them even a few inches away from their normal path, they might miss all their landmarks and actually become lost. Always ask before acting on your kind impulses. (Sorry for the PSA, folks, but I feel like it’s such a small thing I can do that could make a really big difference to someone.)
My brother took a massive (and ultimately fatal) overdose of painkillers and I was flying from Atlanta to LA to see him in the hospital. The plane was pretty empty, but a guy was seated next to me. I spent the flight in a semi-fetal position, crying silently off and on. I don’t think we ever even looked at each other. He could have gotten as far away from me as he wanted, but he stayed seated next to me. Thank you for offering comfort to me–I still remember your kindness.
*raises hand* Another “cries easily” person here. I agree, having someone at least offer a tissue is always helpful, especially when you’ve already used up all of your own. That being said, the last time I was crying in public, it was rather embarrasing when a very nice gentleman came up to me to check if I was OK. I hadn’t had anything happen, just had to step out of a class presentation because I couldn’t control my coughing. I was already annoyed with myself for interrupting my classmates, I couldn’t stop that awful sounds-like-I’m-dying coughing, and then tears started streaming down my face. Fantastic. I couldn’t catch my breath, I was sitting with my head down, and the very nice gentleman came along and thought I was crying because someone had died. I know I looked a mess, and just wanted to crawl under a bush and hide. The thought was nice, but I still wish no one had come by at all.
Relating back to Michelle above on crying in planes and/or airports:
A few years ago, I was flying back to Chicago after having flown back for a last minute house closing for my parents in NYC. They were packing up to move to the new house, so I was schlepping a lot of my old stuff back to my apartment. I was exhausted and tired, carrying way more stuff than I should have been, and on the brink from the emotional craziness of flying back and yoking my economic well-being to my parents. I get to the gate with an hour to spare, and decide to call my parents to say I made it to the gate, and realize that MY CELLPHONE IS NOT IN MY BAG.
After a thorough inspection of all of my belongings, I realize that I not only did not have my phone, but had no way of knowing where I may have left it. I try to calm myself down by sitting and reading, telling myself that I probably dropped the phone at my parents, and that I can get them to mail it back. So what book do I decide to read in order to compose myself at that moment?
Jacob Have I Loved.
Which always makes me cry.
I spend the remaining 45 minutes until boarding sitting with tears and snot flowing freely, audibly snuffling and looking like a distraught mess. No one says anything to me. I stop crying during boarding, but start again once seated.
I’m literally dripping.
People are looking away.
I’m so ashamed of the fact that I’m crying in public, that I put on my headphones (if I can’t hear them or see them, they can’t see or hear me, right?). Still crying, I’m reading away when someone taps me on the shoulder. I look up to see a male airline employee holding out my cell phone, looking horrified at me. He stammers something about my mom begging the airline ticket counter folks to try to get my phone to me, drops it into my hands, and RUNS off before I can even stop snuffling to say thank you. All the while, everyone within a two row radius of me is looking determinedly away.
Wow, Colleen, the landmark angle didn’t even occur to me. Thanks for sharing that.
I’m one of the crier-avoiders of the group, but I have a story that happened to my boss. She was hiking on a trail near where we live and stopped on a bench to weep about the sad state of her life at that time (abusive husband). An old man walked by (‘appeared as if from nowhere,’ she said) and sat down next to her. He asked her if she’d like to unburden herself on a stranger, and she did. When she was done, he told her that he could tell that she had the strength to make the decision that had to be made, and carry it through. She left her husband the next day and has been better for it ever since.
I’m also an easy crier. It’s very rarely because I’m sad, but feeling really frustrated or overwhelmed puts me right into the blubber zone (which just makes me more frustrated and overwhelmed; thanks, whatever bodily system is responsible for that), so I really feel Lily’s story. And I find crying embarrassing, too, like it’s a sign of weakness, so I mostly don’t really want to be noticed. But on the whole, I think a Kleenex and a sympathetic look is a pretty low-risk, low-embarrassment solution for all concerned.
The last time I cried in “public”, it was actually just in front of some extended family on vacation, and it was, believe it or not, because they were trying to teach me to ride a bike. Which wasn’t working. And which I hated. And which I was frustrated and angry and embarrassed about. So at some point I burst into tears and stormed off to my hotel room.
About an hour later, there is a very small knock on the door. It is my seven-year-old cousin Alex, carrying a stuffed moose and a Dairy Queen Blizzard, both of which he insisted on getting for me. He’s an odd little kid (this summer he is going to weather camp!), but a pretty freakin’ great one.
Oh, I broke down at the airport the other day. I was totally freaking out because 1) I was leaving from a big convention with a bunch of friends and I was sad about that and 2) I had thought my flight was at 2 but it was at 11 and so I had had to pack in like five minutes and get over to the (unfamiliar) airport as fast as possible and then 3) I got to my gate and everything was fine except I COULDN’T FIND MY BOARDING PASS. I totally started crying. No one said anything (which I really appreciated, because I hadn’t completely lost it yet and had a hope of stopping if no one said anything) except the guy who eventually pointed out my boarding pass, which was on the floor behind me.
Some of these stories are heartbreaking and I’m getting all choked up just reading them. I cry pretty easily too but mostly out of frustration and anger rather than sadness.
I used to have a horrible, horrible job and I can’t tell you how many nights I spent on the train ride home silently crying. Everyone pretty much left me alone, and that was fine by me. I’m the sort that just needs to get it out and any act of sympathy would probably just make me cry harder and feel embarrassed. But I think the slient tissue pass and/or brief inquiry as to whether or not the crier is okay would be just fine.
Unlike Cyn, I can do the waterworks with a book, without even the backstory. I spend a lot of time on planes, always with a book, and when the story gets sad, or even if it’s really joyful—the adjoining passengers usually have to duck and cover. It’s even more embarrassing if it’s a really funny book. I literally was questioned once by a flight attendant (yes I had had one glass of wine but it was Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, for chrissakes, is that not a funny book??????) because I was laughing like a hyena.
My favorite me-crying-in-public story happened at the airport. I was flying alone after having a long, sad discussion with an ex-boyfriend. Tears were streaming down my face, and I was doing that hiccupy sobbing that you do when you can’t even pretend you aren’t losing it. Everyone was nice enough to ignore me (had I the power to make myself invisible, I would have opted for that) until I got to the airport employee who needed to check my photo ID against my boarding pass.
“Going to Boston?” she asked me cheerfully.
I nodded.
“You from there?” she continued, completely undeterred by my weeping.
I nodded again.
“Say something! Something with an ‘r’!” she prodded.
“I can’t stop crying?” I offered, hesitantly.
“NO! NO! Something about ‘pahking your cah’!” she screamed.
And that’s when I learned that my body won’t let me be dumbfounded and cry simultaneously!
I always feel so awkward and don’t know what to say, because ‘are you ok’ seems stupid…obviously they’re not. ‘Can I do anything’ is a better suggestion, but even that…I don’t know, crying tends to send me fleeing. I try not to do that as much..the worst was in high school when I was reading in the library and a girl I didn’t know was sitting on the ground near me, crying awfully. I gave her a few sympathetic looks, but really didn’t know what to do or say!
It’s interesting how many of these stories have to do with travelling, either on airplanes or busses. Not surprising I suppose, considering how stressful travelling is and so on. The only I’ve cried in public was on a Greyhound bus back from visiting my then-girlfriend in the States (I’m from Canada). I had no idea when I’d see her next, was horribly stressed out about the situation (family didn’t know what was going on, thought I was somewhere I wasn’t, didn’t know about the ‘girlfriend’ thing in the slightest). She’d made a mix-tape for me, and I started to listen to it while cramped in the back of the bus next to a punk-looking guy dressed like a stereotypical delinquent. I just started crying awfully. He kind of smiled at me and when I took my headphones off for whatever reason, asked if I wanted to talk about it. I kind of shook my head but said thanks, and he started telling me about how he’d been sent away from his home and girlfriend across the country to live with his grandparents; he’d got in some sort of trouble at home. He showed me scrapbooks of him and his girlfriend and so on. It made me cry more, but also was really nice. I eventually ended up telling him a little bit of what was going on.
I don’t remember all the details, but I do remember his name, so thanks Sean, and I hope things worked out for you. ;)
Yikes, this entry really hit close to home. Upon moving to new york, I very quickly found myself heartbroken.. I had already called friends too many times, I had done the the kickboxing classes, the journal writing, and everything else. It wasn’t until I cried for thirty minutes in the subway without anyone talking to me though that I was able to move on; it -was- liberating…
I am in the group who tend to avoid–I’m actually a very empathetic person (sometimes too much so) but also intensely private. But after reading this thread I think the silent-tissue and/or nonintrusive “Are you ok?” is probably the best way to go. If the person wants or needs help, you’ve given them the opening/comfort, and if they don’t, you haven’t been pushy about it.
One main thing to add:
/”Smile! You look like you just lost your best friend!”/
Telling someone who looks upset or even bored to smile or cheer up is the most inappropriate, rude, hateful thing a person can do. I know that it’s almost always intended in the spirit of kindness, but it’s so dismissive of your feelings–I mean, my god, she DID just lose her best friend, basically, you insensitive ass! Sorry. I tend to have a face that makes people ask me what’s wrong a lot when I’m just sitting there, and I haaaaaaaaate being told to smile. If I am upset, smiling just because someone told me to is the LAST thing I want to do, and if I’m not, it just makes me feel self-conscious about what my face must have looked like to make them say that.
I also notice that it’s almost always men saying it to younger women, which gives me a distinct creepy feeling.
P.S. I am a frustration/anger crier too and glad to see I’m not alone. I feel weird sometimes taking totally gut-wrenching moments without blinking and then bursting into tears just because someone isn’t hearing me in a minor argument, but I guess some of us are just wired that way!
Jennifer – I’m glad you liked the poem! (I’m glad someone read it!)
I’m also glad to know that I’m not the only person who cries easily, and at frustration/exhaustion/feeling like an idiot.
I’ve tried to explain to people that me-crying isn’t the same major thing as other-people-crying. It’s just what I do – as much as I wish I didn’t.
Thank you to everyone here who confirmed that my theory might actually be right – and that I’m not so abnormal!
Another easy crier here (I’m struggling not to cry at work just reading all the comments.) Personally I get embarrassed as hell when I start crying in public and I’m glad that so far no one has ever approached me while I was crying, mainly because it’s usally over something stupid like a sad song playing on my iPod. In the worst cases I can usually control myself until I get to a bathroom. I really hate it when people notice me in public, even when I fall down I would rather no one approach me.
Jeez. When this post pops up, an automatic kleenexâ„¢ dispenser should pop up right along with it.
I cry at anything, and very unprettily, too. It doesn’t matter too much to me whether someone lets me know that they’ve noticed or ignores me; I figure that’s about them and their comfort level, not so much mine, and since my crying is usually for some nameless reason (“the unconscious know ledge of the lamentation of a race, the unknowing surety of an inheritance of woe“) a welfare check is usually not necessary.
However, I would like to send out a great big “FUCK YOU” to all the “Smile! It can’t be that bad!” ASSHOLES out there in the world. I am bitchy enough that I have responded with, “My mother just died and I didn’t get there in time” (my mother is alive and well) just in the hopes that they’ll stop and think the next time they decide to tell a crying person that they’ve neither right or reason to cry.
One of my favorite old country songs is about a girl sitting alone in a bar crying – “the silent type crying that tears out your heart,” and “nobody spoke up, yet no one complained.” Since many of that performer’s songs are based on real-life events, I like the idea that her grief may have gone unremarked upon at the moment, but someone noticed and was moved enough, cared enough, to write a song about her.
Alivicwil: “It’s just what I do” are the EXACT words I use to try to warn people – especially men, who seem to feel compelled to FIX IT, NOW!! when confronted with tears – about my easy cryability. Someone responded once with, “You mean, it’s like a hobby?” Pretty much! A hobby I wish I didn’t have… but, yeah.
Glad to know that I’m not the only one who cries at the drop of a hat – nor the only one whose tears do not necessarily signal sadness or grief, and whose tears can NOT be controlled by a force of will.
What about crying in a class?
I remember being in middle school and having a completely horrid algebra teacher who humiliated all of the students in class. Once, I was so embarrassed and humiliated after her class that I burst into tears about half an hour later, in the next class. That other teacher was very cool about it and didn’t say anything, or maybe she didn’t notice.
Crying in the classroom is really weird because the teacher can see, but as long as she or he says nothing, the other students may not notice.
Now that I’m a teacher, I have had quite a few students burst into tears in the classroom. It’s usually when the discussion topic moves into difficult subjects like family or health, but sometimes it’s when I’m playing a song in class, particularly a sad love song.
Once, a really serious student burst into full on red-faced silent weeping during a love song, and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to continue playing the song, but I didn’t want to call attention to her either. I felt stupid, but I just continued the song and then the corresponding lesson, so as not to call her out in front of her peers. After class, when everyone else had gone, I asked if she was o.k. and if I could do anything to help. Of course she said yes and no respectively, so I just gave her a hug. I felt kind of responsible because I had chosen such a sad song for the lesson.
Could I have handled it better? Does a teacher have more or less responsibility to act on crying in that kind of situation? Is it better to just let the student go about their day without feeling embarrassed that I noticed them crying?
I am not normally a public crier, but there have been times where it’s built up over the course of the day and I’ve been crying in the car on the way home… like sobbing it out.
One afternoon, on the last day of an old job, I was driving home with tears rolling down my cheeks, getting some strange looks from other drivers that I was stuck in traffic with (I’m sure most were thinking that I was crying about the traffic and that I should just got over it already). But one guy in a car that pulled up next to me looked over, caught my eye and mouthed “Are you ok?”. It was weirdly comforting, I just nodded and tried to smile back that I was ok, but, yeah it kind of really helped.
I have a severe phobia of mice – I mean, I can’t accurately explain how ridiculously scared I am of them. And knowing it’s ridiculous doesn’t help. I guess that’s why it’s a phobia. Anyway, after six years living in NYC I had my very first mouse in my apartment, and it completely freaked me out. Plus, I live alone, so there was know “what are we going to do about this mouse?” – it was all me. So I was crying non-stop for about two straight days. And I must say, I was pretty glad no one ever asked me what was wrong, because it was a stupid, stupid reason to be on a crying jag. Until I was on the subway at the end of the second day, just silently sobbing, and woman stopped as she was getting off the train and patted me on the shoulder and handed me a note. I thought that was kind of nice. But I didn’t read the note until later, and it said “Whatever your problem is, Jesus will help you.” I thought that was pretty presumptuous on her part. I mean, I know she meant well, and I’m not religious in any direction, but it could have potentially been really insulting. Not to mention, I think I’m supposed to love all living things or something, so I doubt JC would be on board with the mouse hatred.
On a separate note, I remember one time I was coming home on a Friday night and I was really sick. I hadn’t been drinking or anything, I had just been steadily feeling more and more ill as the day went on. I was trying to make it from the subway to my apartment when a wave of nausea came over me and I had to throw up on the side of the street. I was mortified, until I realized literally no one had noticed. And even in my weakened state, it totally cracked me up that I lived someplace where you can puke over the curb and no one would give it a second thought. Awesome.
When I was 17, I flew up to visit my high school boyfriend at Columbia (he was a year ahead of me.) Needless to say, the long distance thing had pretty much reduced the relationship to it’s death throes and on the last day there, he broke up with me, kissed me goodbye and tossed me in a cab headed for Reagan. I bawled in the cab, I bawled at the airport. I tried to read my book to take my mind off the bawling: “The Awakening” by Kate Chopin… MORE BAWLING. Half way through the flight, a nice man offered me a tissue and, frankly, that’s the ONLY thing he could have done that would have been remotely appropriate, and I really appreciated it.
It’s been a decade, but when I’m worried or stressed over my relationship with my fiance (please note, not the same guy) I dream about New York and taxis…
Iomi: If the rest of the students didn’t notice, I have to think ignoring it until class was over was the best thing to do. As much as I appreciated the fact that I had one teacher who actually cared, I’m still embarassed about getting called out for crying in class in middle school.
For everyone else, this Overheard in New York popped up tonight, and I thought it would be a good addition to this discussion, heh.
I just want to add that the other reason to offer a tissue if you have one is entirely practical. Nothing like trying to find a delicate way to deal with your nose starting to effusively run when you’re completely in no position to deal with it. Because now you’re crying AND you’re gross and unhygienic. So I favor that approach just from a Helpful Hints From Heloise kind of standpoint, too. Don’t make me use my sleeve!
I went on a job interview three weeks after my father died. He’d been sick with cancer and I had left a job to help take care of him, and there was about a three-month gap in my resume.
Of course the interviewers asked me what I had been doing during that time, and I had prepared my answer: that my father had been ill and I was caring for him. Then one of the women asked, “How’s he doing?” And I said, “He died.” And then I burst into tears.
I was completely horrified. I kept trying to stop, and saying, “I’m sorry! I never do this!” but I couldn’t stop. They got me a glass of water and one of the other women said, “When did it happen?” and I told her three weeks ago. They just sat there quietly until I calmed down, and we continued the interview. It was probably only a few minutes, but I walked out of there knowing there was no way they would hire me.
Except they did, and I’ve been there almost five years. I’m not sure what that says about them or me, but that’s my best (or worst) crying in public story.
Interesting topic. I don’t cry in front of other people as a rule, but in cities an airports, as is evidenced by the above stories, the anonymity is somewhat comforting. I remember crying once in a Tampa airport trying to get back to NY, and looking for a place to smoke. I was upset and shaking and all I could focus on was needing some nicotine. Pathetic, I know. I walked to the information desk and on the way noticed at least three other women crying. I tried to compose myself to ask for directions to the smoking area but pretty much gasped and sobbed my way through the question. The airport employee at the desk gave me such a compassionate look that I cried more. She left her desk and silently took my hand and led me to the smoking area, gave me a tissue, and left. Silly as it sounds, that was one of the nicest and most comforting things anyone has ever done for me.
My first day back at work after my mother died, my boss sat me down to talk about how I was doing. She started talking about how devastated she was when her own mother died, and when she got to, “Nothing can ever replace a mother’s love,” I just put my head down and started sobbing. She was trying to show she knew how I felt, and I understood that, but that was just the wrong choice of words.
Tissues and chocolate. I keep both items in my bag at all times and hand them over to upset strangers as needed.
Love this topic. I have way too many of these stories. I definitely need to hand out more tissues.
One Halloween, I was all dressed up as a dead cowgirl, and got into a rager of an argument with my boyfriend. I took off out of this crowded club, so he and his friends left me, thinking I had gone home. But I had no money, so no way to get home (beyond a two hour walk at 2 am), and since I had just moved to the city, no friends to call. I was pretty drunk, so was definitely crying in that snot-covered out-of-control way that would send most sane people far away. But this nice couple came right over to see if they could help. They were on a first date – and uh, not in costume..at all. So, I think I was the icebreaker for them – this crazy girl covered in fake blood, crying my stomach out. They were so shy and sweet with each other, so I pulled myself together and tried to be normal, or as normal as a drunk cowgirl ghoul could be. We wound up walking through the city together to his car, and they drove me home.
Oh, the ignoring of the plane-crying…. Yeah, actually that was one of my most interesting discoveries. I have some freak aura that seemingly compels people to tell me all their life’s trials and tribulations on public transit. I usually listen compassionately, but when I was flying home for my grandmother’s funeral, the guy next to me started in with his own family dysfunction and all I could think was “Really? Today?” When I started crying, he stopped talking RIGHT away, and pretended I was invisible for the rest of the flight.
We were in my speech pathology class watching a promotional gloppy sweet video about kids with cleft palates. While the rest of us tried not to crack up at the cheesy music, one girl sat over in her seat gradually working her way into tears like you do in a sad movie. None of us would have noticed, I think, except that the professor pointed it out. Actually, that made it kind of funny, since it wasn’t anything personal. Then, of course, she turned red with embarrassment. It’s interesting how it’s okay to call attention to the crying if you know nothing’s actually wrong!
After having fought in a train station parking lot with my then boyfriend for a marathon three hours, I hailed a cab and managed to choke out my address. Not my loveliest moment, hair matted into mascara streaks, shaky hands and some serious weepy hyperventilating going on. I remember I wasn’t even that embarassed, since I live in a big city and I imagine cabbies see similar or worse on a daily basis. The guy more or less ignored me for about eight blocks but then slowly pulled over and put the car in park. He turned around–he was young, early twenties, and I think he was terrified of the crying girl in his cab and wanted nothing more than to get me to stop–and said “Come on, miss, it can’t be that bad. You know, things always seem to have a way of working themselves out. You’ll see, it’ll all turn out okay.” I insisted I was fine as best I could, he offered to buy me a chamomile tea, of all things, at a nearby diner, if I felt like talking. I refused, but I remember how kind and above all how panicked he was and it went a long way towards snapping me out of it.
Acknowledging the vocal minority, I agree with the apparent consensus- when I’m crying in public, unless it’s because I’m reading or listening to a sad story, I really want someone to approach me, even though it is awkward.
My crying in public story: My first love and partner of nine years had completely unexpectedly broken up with me two days earlier, and I was feeling very friendless and alone, in a big city 500 miles from my family. I was riding the T to work in the morning, with big, fat tears just streaming down my face. I spent most of the ride looking at the ground, and just as we were pulling into my stop, a woman asked if I was ok and if there was anything she could do. Which I appreciated on its own, but when I told her there wasn’t, she touched me on the arm and said, “Just going through a hard time? I understand.” And I really felt like she did. Restored my faith in humanity, that lady.
I used to live in the city, and one night coming home i saw a woman who i’d seen in my building crying her heart out in front of the building (this is midtown so lots of people and cars passing by). Not a total stranger but i hadn’t really spoken to her before. I asked if i could help with anything and she shook her head to say she was fine but i think she appreciated the gesture.
I saw her later on in the building and though it was a little awkward we at least smile at each other when we run into each other now.
I think erring on the side of over-stepping is better than not doing anything at all. I know i would prefer acknowledgement than to being ignored.
On a different note, i seem to have a problem with smiling to myself (when something good happens in my day) while walking down the road. Sometimes its too much to keep in but then i end up looking like a smiling/laughing freak walking down the road. Mostly i’ll just channel it into smiling at strangers, but i still think i don’t quite pull it off as just a friendly smile…
Not a bad problem to have i know but…this topic reminded me of that.
The day before I moved to my undergraduate college, my grandmother died. She’d been sick with cancer for about six months, and we got the call from the nursing home very early in the morning. About an hour later, I had to go to a gynecologist appointment that I could not miss. I’d held it together until then, and when I’m laying on the table, paper gown and all, waiting for the doc, his assistant comes in and asks a very innocent question — “So, how are you today?” I responded by bursting into tears and managed to blurt, “My grandmother died this morning.” She did exactly what I needed — she sat me up on the table and gave me a great big hug, and let me cry all over her scrubs for a good five minutes. She kept the doctor out of the room until I had it together, and then she stayed through the whole exam and held my hand, as I was still tearing up here and there. It was one of the nicest things anyone’s ever done for me.
As for how to respond when a student is crying in your class. My advice is to walk over to them silently and give them the hall pass/bathroom pass/whatever. I cried several times in classes in high school, and it was such a relief when I was given silent permission to leave the room and get myself together. No one really wants to sit there like that.
Sars,
You put cold spoons on your eyes? I’ve never heard of doing that. Does it work?
I labor under the delusion that no one can see me when I’m crying. On the rare occasions I cry in public, it’s so out-of-the-blue that I would be mortified to have someone point it out. The last time I can remember: I was in a meeting with a boss who’s got a prickly side, and she snapped at me for something. I was so taken aback (and stressed to the max to begin with) that my eyes just welled up. It was more overactive tear ducts than actual crying. I couldn’t leave, and I didn’t have a tissue, so I just had to pretend that I had something in my eye until I dried up. To this day I have no idea if anyone noticed; but I would die of shame if I found out someone did.
Breaking my own rule, though, I have stepped in if I’ve seen someone who’s obviously in distress. A few months ago I was seated next to a tween boy on a plane. He was leaving his dad’s after vacation to go back to his mom’s (on the other side of the country) and he was clearly miserable — huddled in his seat, face against the window, making these snuffly sounds. He was just old enough that I think he was trying to be a man about it, but he wasn’t fooling anyone: pudgy little messy-haired kid in basketball shorts and a T-shirt from camp. It just about broke my heart. I’m usually OK with airplane anonymity, but I couldn’t ignore him, so I talked to him a little bit until he calmed down. I hope it helped.
Oh, I’ve so been the one crying in class during the instructional video. I took a lot of neurobiology classes and we’d watch videos put together by disease research foundations to raise awareness of how terrible such-and-such a disorder is. I lost my dad to a brain tumor, which isn’t really the same as, say, Alzheimer’s, but I could empathize with all the families in the videos and several times needed to excuse myself from class to get it together in the bathroom.
I don’t think cold spoons do much in terms of actually de-puffing the eyes, but after a really hard cry, they feel delightful. Plus it’s kind of goofy, which helps the mood.
Trying being someone who cries all the time and add pregnancy hormones to it. Seriously, it is so bad that my husband can now make the distinction between ‘serious’ crying and ‘Lissa just needs to cry’ crying.
A friend of the family had inoperable lung cancer for about five years and had been hope-filled and noble about the cancer until the end. Noticed that I was having a hard time talking to him, and used HIS OWN DYING to help me talk about death and faith. That guy.
So the day he died, my parents got the call at about four a.m., told me at breakfast, and I’m not really a right-away crier, I have to let it sink in. So in it sank, and I fully absorbed the news in my second-period English class. I hated school that year, hated my English teacher (brusque, insensitive, made a lot of incorrect assumptions about me in particular), hated working in small groups, which we were doing that day, and really hated drawing attention to myself in any way. I was trying desperately to pretend I wasn’t crying, the other girl in my small group was offering tissues as discreetly as she could, and pretty soon I’m at the snuffling-snot-pouring-down-my-face-full-on-wail-itching-the-back-of-my-throat phase. The teacher had been ignoring my group till that point and then the non-jerk guy in my small group motioned her over (I’m pretty sure he was panicking) and asked her to help me. Her idea of “help” was to pull me out of the room–literally pull, by my elbow–demand “what is WRONG with you?”, decipher my snuffled “My uncle just died,” and order me to go to the bathroom and clean up my face. Not so much as an “I’m sorry.” Mary and Joel were as helpful as they could be, but I didn’t realize until typing this just now how pissed I still am at Mrs. Connelly, thirteen years later.
Re:MeganT – that’s a case of someone who shouldn’t be a teacher. Of all the crap potentially going on in those years for kids (family issues, parents’ divorce, messed up overly dramatic relationship crap, grandparents dying, friends on drugs/committing suicide) the worst thing you can do is be insensitive to a kid who’s in distress. But that’s just my opinion I guess…
I’m a big cryer. Okay, huge actually. I cry at the movies ALL THE TIME. Both happy and sad moments. I cry at books. Sometimes I even cry at music. I read some books over and over, and I will cry, even if I’ve read it 100 times before. (Oh helloooo, Harry Potter #6…) A lot of these stories on here are making me tear up. I cry at that stupid freaking episode of The Simpsons where Homer explains to the kids that there aren’t any baby pictures of Maggie in the house because he keeps them all at work to remind him that he goes to his crappy job he hates every day because it’s the only way he can support three kids, and he loves Maggie enough to suffer through it. I cry EXPLAINING that stupid plot to people.
I cried in the grocery store once – I’d stopped in before work the morning my grandmother died. I was just going to run in and out, but I had to pass the pharmacy, and I have this bizarre relationship with the pharmacist so he asked if I was okay. It made me feel better that he was sympathetic, but it also made me cry more to have to name the problem out loud. Which, okay, I guess because what DOESN’T make me cry? heh. The time I can remember crying on a plane was the first time I’d been back to Boston after moving away. I saw the skyline from the window, realized “I don’t live here anymore” and didn’t know if I’d ever live there again, and kind of lost it. People ignored me, which was fine, but I wouldn’t mind a tissue or a nod.
I’d rather be ignored if I’m crying over a book, because I think the Nose In A Book, Crying Woman tableau is pretty freaking obvious, and embarrassing to explain.
I went to my first conference for work this past winter, and got chewed out over email about something I’d been working really hard on and trying to resolve from 3000 miles away. It was kind of brutal to put so much of myself into it and be told I sucked for it. So I spent the morning of that day curled up in a corner outside the bathroom on the top floor of the conference center (as far as I could get from the main concentration of people) sobbing on the phone with first my officemate back in NJ, and then my fiance. People looked at me funny but no one asked if I was okay – I think the “huddled in the corner clutching the phone” was pretty clear, though.
I can’t speak for all people, but I usually let my body language communicate whether I’d be okay with being approached or not. If I want to be alone, I’ll go in a bathroom, pretend I’m on the phone or reading, or go in a corner/away from people if I have the option. If I’m so distressed I really NEED help or if I’m looking to be approached or need to talk, I’ll allow myself to be more in the open and not hide behind a book/magazine/phone, etc. I think I’d tend to respond to other people the same way: if someone is reading and crying, or on the phone and crying, I probably will not approach them. A girl sitting right out in the open staring into space and crying, I would probably do either the tissue or ask if I can help. Probably a decent rule of thumb.
I have read all of your stories and I have been tearing up here at school. I am in the “pass the person some tissues and maybe a bottled water” camp.
I don’t really”cry” in public or private for that matter; I hardly ever really cry. Just a few “eyes well up moments” here and there. But one day while I was working as a hostess at a hotel there was a little old Hispanic lady trying to figure out the soda dispenser. In spite of being Mexican American, I don’t really speak Spanish, but I managed to help her out. She smiled and said “Gracias”, and she had this sweet smile. I realized in that moment that she actually looked a lot like my abuela (grandmother) who had died when I was 18. I managed to tell her in my broken Spanish, and she seemed to understand. She held my hand for a moment and even her hand felt like my grandmother’s. I ducked into the kitchen and started sobbing, but I knew no-one could hear me over the dishwashers humming. My boss came in to look for me and she was very sympathetic till she asked, “When did your grandmother pass away?” I was like, *sniffle* “Six years ago!” She literally just backed away slowly, like I was dangerous.
Thanks, Kate2. Luckily Mrs. Connelly retired about six years after that hideous moment and no other painfully shy fifteen-year-olds have to endure that particular brand of adolescent torture. In general, I think everyone’s correct here: that the tissue pass is okay in virtually all cases, and that you have to read the crier’s body language. Mostly, since I hardly ever cry and even less frequently in public, if I do cry in public I’m trying to pretend that this isn’t happening, that I’m not making a horrible scene, and that any second now I’m going to regain control of myself until I’m somewhere private. The tissue pass would help me recognize that my pretending isn’t working, that there are other people in the world who do have the compassion to pass a tissue to a stranger and humanity is therefore not doomed, and that I’d best gain control of myself immediately.
Suzanne:
That’s okay, my grandma died in 1989…nigh on 20 years ago. I’m getting married in March and I lost it LAST WEEK because I realized GoGo was going to miss my wedding. And the funny thing is, in the intervening years it’s not like her memories haunt my daily life or anything, but it really BUGS me and makes me sad that she didn’t live to meet Francis. I have no clue why, after so long, it should suddenly bother me…