Crying in Public

With spring arriving in full force in London, my hay-fever induced tears have me reminiscing on all the other reasons I've cried in public, and why maybe we should all be doing more of it

Crying in public… cathartic, dramatic, embarrassing or all of the above?

Because my mom and my best friends are subscribed, I need to preface by saying this is not a cry for help. Yes, I’ve been going through it lately (and by it I mean the existential dread fuelled by being a fresh grad/twenty-something who doesn't know what she’s doing with her life ) but I’m taking it all in stride and trying to milk it for the entertainment of my eight loyal readers. I’ve always been a big crier, I feel big feelings. I think if I were to tally up my tears and run the numbers (I’m a little too into Excel) I’d say most of my tears aren’t sad tears. I cry a lot out of frustration, but also tears of joy, drunken confusion, being generally overwhelmed with my emotions, and as of last month, as a result of my body’s rejection of pollen.

I’ve cried in public for plenty of harmless reasons. I cry reading books all the time, and since I spend a lot of time reading in public [transport], lots of randos have seen me attempt to keep my sniffling down. I also get teary-eyed watching Christmas adverts and strangers on the internet find out they’re going to be parents, so I avoid those in public but pull them out when I’m overdue a tear fest. A few summers ago when I was visiting Palermo with my family, I shed an actual tear after taking the first bite of my Pasta alla Norma. On a more embarrassing note, last month I had a public breakdown on the Overground, laugh-crying about my frustration with job applications sat between two (employed) friends whilst the five other people around eyed me with pity. I also recall the summer before my senior year of High School, sobbing, lying on my mother’s lap on some bench at the Barnard campus after blanking in the middle of my interview. Last summer after realising maybe I do suffer slightly from vertigo halfway through a hike with my best friends, I had a semi-public panic attack and allowed myself a mini-pity-party before having to rush the second half if we wanted to make our train home. I’ve gotten calls with bad news in public and had to sit on the curb or on the stairs of my university building to digest. I don’t think I’ve ever drunk-cried in a bathroom but have made many bathroom besties by consoling girls who have (the momentary bonds formed in girls’ bathrooms are one of my favourite things about being a woman). My friends tease me mercilessly about my (sometimes teary) drunken confessions of love and appreciation (I tell them I love and appreciate them when I’m sober with double the frequency so I’m not sure why they’re still surprised when I start listing their attributes after two shots of tequila).

Crying in public… best places, best practices, and does anyone even care?

I think F. Scott Fitzgerald was onto something when he wrote “I like large parties. They’re so intimate. At small parties there isn’t any privacy.” Have I already mentioned I was crying on the overground last week? I feel like crying (or existing in general) in a packed tube doesn’t feel like that big of a deal, it’s rush hour, everyone is low-key dissociating until they get home and no one pays you any mind. Semi-empty trains though? That’s an entirely different story. Your eyes tend to wander and it’s easier to eavesdrop. I’m 50/50 on crying in the bathroom. They can be inconspicuous, but you run the risk of walking out of the stall only to face a queue of people who have bore witness to your meltdown in the middle of the workday. The smell alone can also account for some eye-watering in certain public restrooms. Maybe my main character syndrome is showing (a common side effect of chronic memoir consumption) but for someone who feels lost and powerless a lot of the time, crying in public can feel refreshingly like being back in control. If it sounds like I’m trying to sell you on crying in public, it’s because I probably am. I really think it might be good for you. Regain control by relinquishing it. We spend so much time concerned about how we’re perceived, the last thing we want is to shatter the illusion of having it together. I for one have slowly started to embrace the publicization of not having things figured out (first, you start telling your friends you’re actually kinda struggling, and next thing you know you’re getting looks of concern when you tell them you’re working on a piece about crying in public for strangers on the internet… but it’s light and upbeat! you promise them. This has all happened in the span of the week my therapist has been on holiday. She’ll be in for a treat).

I’m always comforted by the reminder of how little strangers care or pay attention to you. Even if they notice your public tears on their way home and happen to mention it to the friend they’re meeting that night at the pub, you’ll be old news soon enough. I find strangers are rarely a source of embarrassment for me (case in point, I have no issue oversharing with strangers on the internet) and close friends have seen me in every possible state, so we’re beyond that as well. What makes me cringe is the thought of seeing an acquaintance in public when I’m having a public meltdown. The anonymity of it all is 90% of the appeal. Crying on the overground might have been a little embarrassing (can you tell this has been keeping me up at night?) but the real killer would have been to look up and make watery eye contact with someone I knew in high school, an old professor or a former insignificant other. At the end of the day, let him who has never cried in public cast the first stone (lucky you!)