Real Men Don't Cry

Real Men Don’t Cry

I wonder if anyone ever mentioned this to footballers. Considered the pinnacle of Australian heterosexuality they are not allowed to have team sexual encounters, drink alcohol, or heaven’s forbid stay up late. But going the blub? Fully acceptable, neigh expected.

Particularly about football.

It is appropriate to cry if you lose a final, regardless of which finals round your team fails. It is also appropriate if you win a final, regardless of the round. Compare this to the bone crunching blows, consciousness ending tackles and random misplaced elbows that break teeth, noses or both. None of these traumas warrant any sort of salty discharge.

Tearing up however may be accepted in relation to football if you kick the winning goal after the siren or if you retire. Using the principle of precedent it also appropriate to cry if you weren’t personally involved in the game but players wearing the coloured uniform of your preference lost. Apparently they lost on your behalf.

To be honest as a spectator it is not only alright to cry at the sight of your teams disappointing score line. You can through a tantrum so complete in its anguish it is only rivalled by a four year old being refused a treat by his/her exhausted mother as she tries desperately to avoid the confectionery aisle whilst completing the weekly grocery shopping.

I blame the amount of crying associated with football to the amount of hair product now used by the players. The bleach, the mousse, the gells and wax. Just like women it chemically alters their brain and predisposes them to emotional outbursts. If they can endure the waxing of all of their body then a footballer can cope with losing a game.

Are there other times when it might be appropriate for the male gender to cry?

Hit thumb with a hammer? No. Hit genitals with anything, yes. Birth of your own child? It depends on where he is standing at the time of the birth. If he is at the pub watching his footy team lose then yes. If he was at the pub when he was meant to be in the delivery room then even the thought of what the new mother will do to his genitals when he does make appearance in the maternity wing of the local hospital, then that is also an acceptable time to whip out a Kleenex.

If the new father is in his rightful place at the birth ready with surgical scissors to cut the umbilical cord then his right to cry depends on at which end of the gurney he stands. If he is at the head to wipe the brow of his child’s mother or to hold her hand then I am sorry it does not matter how tightly she grips his arm then there is no tears allowed. She can gauge her fingernails to the bone in his forearms but he can never cry because as all men know there is no pain we can experience that will ever compare to the pain of giving birth. If however he is standing at the feet to witness the miracle of new life for himself only to see the woman defecate involuntarily just moments before her vagina suffers a level three tear requiring stitches that number into the double digits. The nhe may shed a tear.

He can sob uncontrollably and his mates would understand completely.

The sale or accidental destruction of his first car, or even just the very first scratch or car park ding may be an acceptable cause of getting in touch with his feminine side. That and the death of his dog. This grief may also lead to days of spending every waking hour in the shed, tinkering or repeatedly watching the DVD of his football team losing last years grand final.