Sorry for the super late reply but I think this question deserves an answer.
First up I'm not talking about performative emo culture. I'm saying that authentic expression of your true feelings is a key part of being a healthy human being no matter your gender. You don't have to make a scene. Just be honest. I'm also not saying you shouldn't use that energy to work towards a solution. Doing so is good and healthy.
Saying that emotions are fundamentally not useful displays, I believe, a deep lack of understanding of what emotions actually are. They're not some arbitrary human frailty, they're a finely tuned mode selection / behaviour modifier heuristic that is deeply embedded in the psyche of all mammals and (to varying degrees) all life. Emotions are deeply useful and can act as a communication channel between your conscious and subconscious.
In my own experience there's no such thing as "ignoring" emotions in the long term. You might consciously convince yourself that you're doing so but you're still building up an emotional payload based on what's happening to you and that payload will come out in some other, far less controlled way eventually. Certainly it's possible to cultivate some degree of detachment and so be less affected by the world around you but that just alters the balance, it doesn't remove emotions from your life.
To respond to a couple of your comments in posts below:
> There are many who romanticize the idea of men crying over small things, and I think that's not healthy or productive. I know many people who will cry when they lose a game in their hobby of choice, for example. That kind of thing is too much IMO.
My experience differs here and I feel this is a bit of a distraction/strawman. Being able to play games without getting overly emotionally affected by the outcome is a baseline measure of maturity for everyone regardless of gender and we're not talking about party games here. We're talking about, to paraphrase the GP of my post, "My dad [...] doesn't know how to talk intimately or how to reveal emotions." Being emotionally stunted in this way genuinely impacts your ability to live a fulfilling life.
> It's very reasonable to train yourself to not have those emotions and therefore not carry that baggage.
This is not only not reasonable, I don't believe it's even possible for most people. Either you're wired significantly differently to every human I know (which is possible) or you're not "training yourself not to have emotions", you're just in denial.
> There is an option to not have those negative emotions in the first place.
Again, unless you are very, very far from baseline this is not true.
> That's an extreme example that I'm not really referencing here. Of course I feel sad when something extreme happens, like a loved one dies.
This kind of thing is what the original conversation was talking about.
First up I'm not talking about performative emo culture. I'm saying that authentic expression of your true feelings is a key part of being a healthy human being no matter your gender. You don't have to make a scene. Just be honest. I'm also not saying you shouldn't use that energy to work towards a solution. Doing so is good and healthy.
Saying that emotions are fundamentally not useful displays, I believe, a deep lack of understanding of what emotions actually are. They're not some arbitrary human frailty, they're a finely tuned mode selection / behaviour modifier heuristic that is deeply embedded in the psyche of all mammals and (to varying degrees) all life. Emotions are deeply useful and can act as a communication channel between your conscious and subconscious.
In my own experience there's no such thing as "ignoring" emotions in the long term. You might consciously convince yourself that you're doing so but you're still building up an emotional payload based on what's happening to you and that payload will come out in some other, far less controlled way eventually. Certainly it's possible to cultivate some degree of detachment and so be less affected by the world around you but that just alters the balance, it doesn't remove emotions from your life.
To respond to a couple of your comments in posts below:
> There are many who romanticize the idea of men crying over small things, and I think that's not healthy or productive. I know many people who will cry when they lose a game in their hobby of choice, for example. That kind of thing is too much IMO.
My experience differs here and I feel this is a bit of a distraction/strawman. Being able to play games without getting overly emotionally affected by the outcome is a baseline measure of maturity for everyone regardless of gender and we're not talking about party games here. We're talking about, to paraphrase the GP of my post, "My dad [...] doesn't know how to talk intimately or how to reveal emotions." Being emotionally stunted in this way genuinely impacts your ability to live a fulfilling life.
> It's very reasonable to train yourself to not have those emotions and therefore not carry that baggage.
This is not only not reasonable, I don't believe it's even possible for most people. Either you're wired significantly differently to every human I know (which is possible) or you're not "training yourself not to have emotions", you're just in denial.
> There is an option to not have those negative emotions in the first place.
Again, unless you are very, very far from baseline this is not true.
> That's an extreme example that I'm not really referencing here. Of course I feel sad when something extreme happens, like a loved one dies.
This kind of thing is what the original conversation was talking about.