When Men Cry

I had a patient who came to me this morning presented with running nose. One look at him and I knew that I needed to trail the rabbit in order to know how deep the hole goes. He was usually cheerful,most of the time inviting me to join him in Karaoke session. It's easy to detect depression in a cheerful subject. In laymen term, he looked like shit.

Being very familiar to pain myself, and I'm talking about my pain, not the pain I normally inflict on others, mainly on their asses, if they happen to take joy in crossing the line with me, I started trailing the rabbit. Turned out he had just broken up with his girlfriend. Well, the best cure for a heartbreak, besides time, is getting it out of one's chest. So I started digging his chest, evacuating the unnecessary hogwash that is congesting it, making him have difficulty in breathing due to anxiety.

So, I sat there, became a good listener when something out of the expected happened. He started crying. I froze, for probably the 5th time in my life,(trust me, we don't want to get into what the other 5 incidents that made me froze) and sat there bedazzled . I've never seen a man crying before, except on television and some friends back at Uni, when they heard the Taqbir pagi raya when they could not fly back home to celebrate eid with family (man, they look ugly when they cry). Then again, I married a mule, hard headed and the only thing that would make him cry would probably be when his balls gets squashed between the ground and a football boot.

I've heard about men crying,more in a mythical ways, but I haven't really seen one before my very own eyes. It was quite discomforting really,like I was caught in a situation in which I don't know what exactly to do. (in my profession, that is a blunder). Especially when he cried over a useless girl who played him out. Why would anyone cry for someone who is useless and not worthy of God's natural creation of tears? I do cry every time a relationship ended, but only because I feel sorry for myself (hey, I'm an Aries, we are self centered). Of course I cried when my hubby passed away (man, that dried my tear reservoir, I never thought I had any more tears left after that to cry. Turned out, the tear reservoir is an abyss of tear pool). Of course I know it is a sign of my getting my menses when I start crying upon watching things like the Petronas comercial, or some Bangla cycling in the hot sun etc. But I'm a woman. That is my birth right!! And I do my crying in the rain.

But I'm under the impression that most men are heartless bastards who enjoy breaking women's hearts and brag about the harem of women they've "conquered". The picture of a men crying over a break up seems remote in my imagination. It's something I have to get use to, I guess. Well, never too late to learn something new in life, or rather, experience something new...a man crying over a break up...hmmm.....

But what to do when your eyes are feasted upon a man crying. Well, when he comes to see people like me, he ended up getting medical leave, just so I thought I'd give him some time off for him to get in touch with his feminine side. Until then, I'm still in awe.........