美文阅读：Non-crying cry 男人的哭泣方式

　　小编注：什么叫做non-cryingcry？这是男人们专有的一种哭泣方式。也许在婚礼上，女儿和妈妈可以互相抹去眼泪，但是爸爸只能一个人默默回到自己的房间，默默去想念，因为男人是不允许在大庭广众下轻易掉眼泪的。这也是为什么一个父亲会教自己的儿子，如何学会non-cryingcry。大家有没有觉得，父亲节或者老爸的生日那天，不管你花多少心思，都难得看到老爸像老妈那样大动感情呢？其实，他只是用另一种方式，流下了作为男人和父亲的眼泪。

　　Real men don't cry. We just get something in our eye

　　A short walk from my house in Hampshire, on a hill overlooking theheathland, is a plaque marking the spot where Richard Pryce Jonesdeliberately crashed his Halifax bomber during the war. He could haveparachuted to safety, but that would have meant crashing into thevillage. The epitaph reads: "He died that others might live."

　　It never fails to move me. Not to tears, you understand. That wouldbe disrespectful. But I do usually manage a lump in the throat and thatfilm of moisture over the eyes that men have in their emotionalarmoury. Gordon Brown demonstrated the non-crying cry beautifully whenhe made his farewell speech on the steps of Number 10. That catch in thethroat. The determination not to weep in public. At that moment, if atno other, he had nobility。

　　Not everyone can carry it off. I don't think Paul Gascoigne everquite got the hang of it, for example. But I like to think I have itdown to an art, my technique honed

　　from years of watching The Railway Children, Sleepless in Seattleand that scene in Dumbo when the mother elephant is locked away."Daddy!" my sons will say, pointing the accusing finger. "You'recrying!"

　　"Me? Over Dumbo? Ha ha ha. No, boys, what I am doing is man-crying,a sort of non-crying cry. I'll teach you it one day. Very useful."

　　They are too young to appreciate the nuance yet, but when they areolder I will explain that open sobbing is associated with being female,and so inappropriate

　　for men. The Charlie Chaplin analogy might be useful here. He oncesaid that the way to act drunk is to imagine yourself a drunk man tryingto act sober. The same is true when a man learns the non-crying cry. Tobe convincing, you must look as if you are trying to avoid tears。

　　In this respect, it is important for a young man to appreciate thedifference between male tears and female. I remember once asking theactress Emilia Fox if she could cry at will, right there and then, overlunch. To my astonishment, she could – from a standing start. Fat tearsrolling down her cheeks. When she had finished, she resumed her smilingcountenance。

　　Those are female tears, and the reason you never hear anyone say:"It's enough to make a grown woman cry." That expression only works whenit refers to "grown men" and though that may seem tautological, the"grown" is justified. Not all men are grown. The emotionally incontinentexhibitionists who cry when they are kicked off talent shows such asThe X Factor are not grown men, for example. Men have to be careful whatthey cry at, because some subjects are more worthy of tears thanothers. Grief, obviously. But not self-pity. And rarely should a man cryin pain. And never at the death of a princess he didn't know. Those arethe rules。

　　I suspect my colleague Matt Pritchett might be with me on this. Oneof his cartoons this past week showed a father next to a televisiontuned to the World Cup, explaining to his children that "at some pointin the next few weeks, you are going to see me cry". And the day afterthe last survivor of the Great Escape died, he did a cartoon showing agravestone with a mound

　　of tunnelled earth trailing away from it. I seemed to havesomething in my eye when I saw that, and I expect he had the samesomething in his eye when he drew it。