Getting dumped is the WORST. Getting dumped by text is even worse than that. Receiving the message at work is unbearably grim, and if your work is the House of Commons – well, it’s not going to be easy to just let tears blur your vision and wait for a kindly pal to lead you out through the car park and into the nearest All Bar One. So I’m sending all the sisterly solidarity in the world to poor MP Tracey Crouch, who went through all of the above when her boyfriend dumped her by text in the middle of the Commons vote on the Queens Speech. She was later seen crying in the Voting Lobby and who can blame her... you would cry too if it happened to you.
I am a massive crybaby. I’d rather fart loudly and stinkily in a crowded lift than burst into tears in public, but I still spend far too much time with my head in my handbag, snuffling and searching for my sunglasses. I’m ashamed of myself. Whenever I burst into tears, I feel like I’m letting the side down. Women of substance should be able to read unreasonable emails and then take a deep breath and reply to them, rather than shrieking ‘Oh, God! HELP!’ and sobbing into their sofa cushions. Adult ladies do not cry so hard that they can’t read TFL digital displays and then cry even harder when they work out they’ve been going the wrong way around the circle line for 20 minutes.
Stephen Sideroff PhD, a psychologist at the University of Santa Monica, explains that fundamentally, we cry because we’re seeking an emotional pressure valve. ‘It’s a release. There’s a build up of energy with feelings.’ We’re supposed to be ruled by reason, not passion. Women are pressured to compartmentalise their lives. There is no place for the personal in a professional setting. But as Tracey found, the personal and professional will blur. We get texts from partners and pals while we’re in the office. We respond to work emails after hours, at home and in the pub. And as our work culture grows and dominates, rising up and crushing our free time like an administrative Godzilla, the feelings need somewhere to go.
The Fault In Our Stars finally reaches UK cinemas on Friday, and it’s predicted to be one of the biggest movies of the summer. I suspect this is largely due to its weepy status. We can find the release Sideroff speaks about by allowing ourselves to be swallowed up by a story. It’s safe to cry at fiction. At the end of an incredibly stressful period in which I was writing a book, starting a new job and trying to move house, my boyfriend took me to see The Enigma Of Kaspar Hauser, a heartbreakingly beautiful, bleak film by Werner Herzog. I cried so much that I made myself ill. I thought I had flu. We went to the pub afterwards, and every time I attempted to speak I blubbed harder and snotted up my gin and tonic. But critics are quick to write off weepy movies as the preserve of the self indulgent. Admit it – we’ve all been bitchy about that girl we know who loves The Notebook more than her Mum. But maybe, like the rest of us, she just needs a good cry sometimes, and it’s easier to weep over Ryan Gosling than to wait for real life emotion to catch her unawares.
According to Dr Ad Vingerhoets, the author of Why Only Humans Weep, ‘Humans are the only species to produce emotional tears. We are also one of the few species who carry on crying into adulthood.’ This makes me feel a little better about my own emotional incontinence. It’s our biological business to get wet and salty when we’re hurt, or abandoned, or watching the credits of a documentary about Amy Winehouse. Dr Vingerhoets adds ‘Quite simply, [tears] show a need of support from others.’ When we cry, we’re probably not consciously doing it to get attention, but our body knows that we require it and it’s sending out an alarm signal - tears are a last resort.
I imagine Tracey Crouch feels as embarrassed as any of us might do, after she cried at work. But I don’t think she has anything to be ashamed of. When we allow ourselves to cry properly, we’re keeping in touch with our minds and our bodies, and listening to the signals that force us to address something might be wrong. If someone tells me they’re proud of their ability to stay dry eyed, I worry that their emotional dam is going to burst somewhere down the line. We’re not robots, and we don’t cry because we’re weak. The tears come out because we’ve been trying to be strong and hold it together for too long. And strength isn’t a permanent state. We should all allow ourselves to be vulnerable sometimes.
Follow Daisy on Twitter @NotRollerGirl
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.