A lot has been said recently about Cristiano Ronaldo breaking down in inconsolable tears after missing a penalty, following a disappointingly mediocre performance during his country’s game against Slovenia at the Euros. And it’s been not all that positive either. While some conversations online have praised his general resilience and heralded his eternal greatness, others have focused predominantly on mocking his poor recent performance, judgements on his ‘unmanly’ reaction to the penalty he missed and the need for him to get a better handle on his emotions. Should he get a better handle on his emotions, or should the rest of us take the lid off ours and let them flow?
Ronaldo’s behaviour looks particularly brave in the context of the existing social norms which require men (and to a lesser extent women) to repress their emotions, particularly those clustered around sadness and despair. According to a UK YouGov survey from last year, almost half of men (48%) would feel uncomfortable crying in front of their friends. Perhaps surprisingly, doing so would make as many as 6 in 10 of the youngest men (18-24) uncomfortable, more than any other age group. Another recent survey reported that more than a third of women had cried within the last week (36%), almost three times as many as men (13%).
The most stomach-churning headline I saw in relation to Ronaldo’s having a good cry, which was republished by a fair number of online properties, read “Ronaldo crying like a little girl”. It felt wrong on many levels, the most glaring being the derogatory connotation that the term “little girl” clearly carries for so many. Crying like a little girl is seen as the starkest possible contrast to acceptable behaviour for a powerful man in his prime. According to global social norms, a little girl crying is the ultimate expression of of frailty, powerlessness and weakness.
I catch myself dreaming of what the world would look like if we all cried like little girls when we felt sorrow, despair, awe, excitement and other powerful feelings. After all, crying is the body’s reaction to experiencing the world through our thoughts. Judging ourselves and each other for crying is like judging ourselves and each other for having a heart or a kidney or lungs. So it concerns me when I discover that almost half GB adults (48%) feel either very or somewhat uncomfortable or do not know how comfortable they feel witnessing public displays of emotion, like crying. Through this widely accepted repression of displays of strong emotion we condemn ourselves and each other to a life of half-authenticity and half- existence.
Historically I have not been a big fan of Ronaldo’s due to his seeming narcissism and arrogance, alpha male characteristics that I think we need less of in this ultra-alpha world. Interestingly, after watching him during the match with Slovenia, my view of him has shifted for the better. I connected with his humanity and recognised my own vulnerability in him. He was a man not simply lamenting his lost penalty but also the lost virility of his youth and the diminishing physical precision that descends on us all with age. In that moment, I felt like giving Ronaldo a hug and reassuring him that he was going to be all right, so long as he recognises the growth opportunity this unique new phase opens up for him.
Ultimately I felt grateful to Ronaldo for breaking down in tears in front of millions of boys, girls, men and women: maybe, just maybe, they will feel a tiny bit more comfortable breaking down in tears and allowing themselves to feel a fuller tapestry of emotions next time they are amongst people like themselves.
