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Comment by brador | Hacker News Reader

Maybe crying is seen as an intense emotion for rare occasions so when someone seems to be crying every weekday or over trivial things it demeans the powerfulness and impact of crying.

Also because of it's reservation for truly impactful events random crying can seem fake or artificial. 'Attention whoring' as the kids like to call it.

You cry at a funeral, you cry at getting a parking ticket. If you cry at both you're kinda putting them on the same level eh?

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Sure, there are attention whores but the existence of an outlier of people doesn't seem to me to be a very good reason to shame most people for something that our bodies are designed to do.

The parking ticket thing reminds me of a teenager I worked with once who got a speeding ticket. He started getting really choked up about it. To your point, was it really a big deal? So he got a speeding ticket. He should put his big-boy pants on, pay it and move on, right? Except, what we found out later was that he was crying because he knew what his abusive father was going to do when he got home.

So yeah, sometimes they are on the same level. Context matters.

This. I'm a grown-ass adult and cried when my father left after visiting. Was it because I was too much of a wimp to be alone and needed my parents? No. It was the shock of having seen someone I'd known my whole life age noticeably, a feeling of simultaneous concern and powerlessness over an array of health concerns, and anticipatory grief centered around the certainty that he will one day die and we both will experience incredible pain as a result.

> Maybe crying is seen as an intense emotion for rare occasions so when someone seems to be crying every weekday or over trivial things it demeans the powerfulness and impact of crying.

Yes, I think that's the issue. Crying should not just be for rare events or an indication of extreme emotional distress. People cry for all sorts of reasons.

Then what do you do for the rare events?

You use the level 1 or 2 crying for normal stuff and you crank it up to a 4 or 5 for the rare occasions

Whatever you feel like.

I feel this way. I had little problem crying at the funeral of my grandpa. There are almost no other situations where I find it appropriate.

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