It keeps their emotions pure. (By which I mean that men tend to sort of instinctively think that talking about their emotions can only degrade those emotions.)
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{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
Are you saying that words can't describe what you are feeling? Your emotions are too great, too grand for words?
What did you do when you 'emoted' about your wife?
Were you, are you degraded?
Are your feelings degraded?
You are saying, men have a natural reluctance to speak about their feelings.
Is it because words don't do their feelings justice?
Or perhaps because once they speak it, it is written in stone, to be weighed and they fear, possibly found wanting?
If only each gender could be appreciated for who they are and what they bring to the table.
Appreciation and acceptance should be the goal.
Stuart – rofl
re: The 5 Words: Ya, I get that. I've always felt that way. Been working for years to get over it. We'll ignore the fact that I'm not a guy.
We have emotions?
After all, they feel them so rarely, they are something to be cherished…
That's nearly five words.
Whoa, slow down, tigress. Please note that I said men THINK that talking about their emotions …. Big difference between perception and fact. (And why so angry/mean? Why start with calling what I wrote a crock of BULL? Be nicer!)
That is the biggest crock of bull I have read lately. Men don't share their emotions for the same reasons that anyone does not share their emotions. It makes a person feel vulnerable.
- The person/people they choose to share their feelings with may judge, reject, or invalidate.
- They are afraid the reaction of who they. I have often heard the excuse of I don't want to hurt _______ . As if lying, by either straight out saying they are feeling something else or by omission, does not hurt the other party.
- They are conflicted or confused about what they are actually feeling.
- They are judging their own feelings, thinking they should not feel that way or that feeling a certain way makes them wrong or bad.
- If they share their emotions things may have to change. In general, no matter how uncomfortable a situation, people are resistant to change.
Any other reason that I can think of at the moment fall under those reasons. I am not denying that men and women think, feel, and react differently. However, there are things that are just human nature. We really are a lot more alike than either sex as a whole tends to admit.
When it comes to keeping emotions "pure", is it so off base to think that if sharing one's emotions causes a dialogue that opens one's eyes to another point of view or attention to other information that emotions would change. Emotions come from our thoughts about a particular event or set of events. Therefore, emotions are not set in stone.
Good point, Liz. I changed it.
"By which I mean that men think that talking about their emotions can only degrade them"
Degrade men or emotions?
Red: Dude. Exactly.
And now we’ve male-bonded.
What other emotions ARE there?
Daniel: Cool! Pull up a chair! Pop a beer! You’re in.
Oh. I see you’re still carrying your stalker binoculars. So … now you have to leave.
LOL, and in that same number of sentences, John, you could’ve actually answered the question
Because I’m writing back anyway 
I actually had to read this several times before I realized I was approaching it from the wrong angle– I thought those “5 words” were something women came up with to figure out the answer, and I thought to myself, “Trust a woman to come up with something so touchy-feely and yet so meaningless”. Well, perhaps that just means you’re more in touch with what women think than you realize
thanks, John!
Because extra talking is a catalyst to actually create even MORE emotions, which cloud the simple purity of the original emotion.
Exactly. Because if we say something, then YOU'LL say something, and then we'll have to say something back, and next thing you know we've missed something good on TV. As the Good Book says, "For the man who chooses talk over silence is like unto the stupid little Danish boy who, shirking his responsibility, unplugs his finger from the dam." (You might not have that in your Bible. I have a rare, little known translation.)
Those are really good questions, Helly, but we'd rather not talk about it.
So what the heck does that MEAN anyway? What are "pure" emotions? What are "impure" emotions?
That presumes men emote! LOL. (also 5 words – OK, technically 7)