Crying!!!

Wow! Three responses to my last post. That right there gives me the impetus to resume my past musings. As I now have over a year's worth of experiences, I figure I can post on virtually any topic I want.

So, I was reading an article on yahoo today entitled "What Scares a Man?"

http://health.yahoo.com/experts/menlovesex/17701/what-scares-a-man

And while some of this post is absolute rubbish (#11 - I don't fear the Speedo, I embrace the Speedo), item #9 is absolutely RIGHT ON! Her Tears! I've been married for over 6 months now, and absolutely nothing frustrates me more than when (metaphorically speaking) the faucet starts leaking. What are we men to do in face of such an onslaught?

I think there are two key reasons for this. The first is best summed up by Ben Stiller in Starsky and Hutch: "I'm not a crier, I don't cry, I work out. I have a job, I have hobbies..." This is what real men do. We have jobs and hobbies. We don't cry. So when a woman cries, we just don't understand it. It's just not in our nature.

The second reason for this is guilt. The moment the tears start flowing, we feel guilty. Men are by our nature guilty creatures. We do things that offend. We normally take pride in this fact. It is coded in our DNA (somewhere in the Y chromosome). So when a female cries, we naturally assume it was because of us.

Now the kicker is that these two key reasons combine. We assume the crying is because of us but we don't understand why the reaction to our supposed actions is crying. If we offend another guy, he would punch us, we would punch back, and all is solved. You just can't punch back when a woman is crying (aside from the moral, ethical, and legal problems, it would just make her cry more, thus compounding the problem). So what do we do? We don't know!!! When my kitchen faucet leaks, I get a monkeywrench and fix it. I can't do that to my wife (yes she has already told me I can't when I tried to get it out!). So what do we do? (This is rhetorical question, so please don't post any comments like "hold her", "comfort her", "tell her everything is all right", etc.)

And its even worse when she is not crying because of us. While we men feel an immediate sense of relief at being off the hook, we are then even more confused because we have absolutely no idea why she is crying. The guilt at least explains a portion of the crying. Remove the guilt, and we men are absolutely dumbfounded.

Thus, I wholly agree with #9 on Yahoo's list. I fear the tears.

Don is entering the Foreign Service

While I'm not sure if anyone I know still reads this blog, I figured I'd put it up here anyways. So, last month I took the Foreign Service Oral Assesment and I passed. This means that pending a problem with my security clearance, medical exam, or budget cuts, I'll be entering the U.S. Foreign Service and working in Embassies and Consulates around the world. So, I kind of thought that was cool and deserved to be shared.

Peace out!