"They will normally say: All right then, bye. My gran died when I was about 18, and I was sad, of course, but in terms of tears there was nothing, no water. I never cried at movies. I didn't cry on my wedding day, nor at the birth of either of my daughters. It never alarmed me. I actually thought I might have underactive tear glands."
"I didn't cry then but I did have the urge to see it again. I think it was maybe the third or fourth time of going when the song Dear Bill got me. I was shocked to find myself crying. I had to go back to see it with my wife, Yael, to prove to her that I could now cry."
The narrator stopped crying by adolescence, influenced by boarding school culture and emotionally distant parents. Tears were absent at major life events: a grandmother's death, films, a wedding, and the births of two daughters. The lack of tears felt unalarming, and the narrator suspected underactive tear glands. The emotional restraint stemmed from a need for control and repression. A West End musical, Operation Mincemeat, later breached this control. The song 'Dear Bill' triggered unexpected crying because of its layered restraint and rose-tending metaphor for separation. The reaction raised concerns about how the narrator's family perceives his emotional presence and became a Pavlovian response.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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