If Betty Cooper was your favourite character from the Archie Comics series, you need a reality check. Good girls are usually emotional fools and like Betty, always end up getting an unfair deal. Veronica Lodge, on the other hand, gets what she wants, the man and everything else that follows with it. Who would you rather be?
Women are often unflatteringly called ‘emotional twits.’ Before you foam and froth about it being an unfair generalisation, stop and think for a bit. Aren’t women always either loving or caring or angry or vulnerable or – well, you could go on and on. It’s difficult to find a woman who’s achieved that exclusively male trait of being ‘perfectly at peace’ all the time.
Women tend to be emotional creatures, but this isn’t a weakness. All it means is that when expressed healthily, emotions can help women deal with life’s crises, unlike men who are content with brooding silences. Sometimes, though, being too emotional can lead to problems. Especially if you’re in the early stages of a relationship, when being too open about your feelings could land you in a mess.
Yet women never seem to keep the lid closed on their bubbling cauldron of emotions – they simply have to let it all out. It’s not always a good thing.
{{/usCountry}}Yet women never seem to keep the lid closed on their bubbling cauldron of emotions – they simply have to let it all out. It’s not always a good thing.
{{/usCountry}}Woman, hold it!
But, you’d rationalise, it’s all part of being a woman so aren’t we supposed to simply go with the flow? Not everyone thinks so. Minal Bakshi, a 27-year-old PR executive, says it can have disastrous results, especially in relationships where the balance of power is not equal. “I was seeing a married colleague for a year and since we had little time together, it was very difficult when I’d get emotional about everything but he was so controlled. It was a deep involvement and I went through a bad phase because of I couldn’t keep my emotions in check. Ultimately we split because it was too taxing mentally,” says Bakshi.
Rakhi Anand, clinical psychologist, VIMHANS, says that despite social conditioning, women should learn to control their emotions in order to be stronger and deal better with relationship problems.
Why it’s such a girl thing
There’s no denying that men can also get emotional, but they cope by hiding their feelings. Women, on the other hand, have a much harder time and tend to go overboard. Says former model and now choreographer Marc Robinson, “Women work harder at relationships and are more committed. They try to salvage even potentially dead affairs because they are over-emotional about these matters. It’s good in a way but in an insecure relationship when someone is playing with your emotions, it may not be a good idea. For a perfect understanding, both the man and woman have to compromise. The man can try to be a little more sensitive and the woman can be a little tolerant of his moods and try to understand him for what he is. A balance of emotions is the main thing.”
Diverting your energies
Of course, as someone rightly said, ‘feelings cannot be controlled, they can only be diverted.’ This applies to most man-woman relationships. When you’re feeling low and the man you love isn’t there to hold you, don’t just wallow in tears. Go to work or go for a movie with friends. Just do something.
“Keeping your mind off your guy is difficult when you’re feeling vulnerable. But once you get involved in something you like, it can keep you occupied till you’re out of that stage. It makes you feel better that you didn’t give in to your weepy impulses,” says Nidhi Tiwari, a writer. Put all your energies in your work or do a spot of yoga or a bit of gymming to get that smile back in place. It actually works!
Battle of the sexes
Sometimes, even the most innocuous of things can let loose a torrent of emotions. Women are prone to going on an emotional roller-coaster ride, not just because of their genetic make-up, but also because they use it as in indirect signal to tell the men in their lives that they want a little bit of love. It could also be used as a tool to manipulate the situation to their advantage, say Allan and Barbara Pease, authors of the best-selling book, Why Men Lie and Women Cry.
Says model-actress Dipannita Sharma, “Women can become over-emotional because of the way the men in their lives are. If you ask a man why he’s late, he assumes you’re checking up on him. That leads to hostility on his part whereas for the women, it’s genuine concern. Because they are so misunderstood, women, at times, lose their grip on their emotions.”
Know what you want
When you don’t really know what you want from a relationship, it can send you into a state of highs and lows. Be clear about where you stand, advises Anand of VIMHANS. That itself should help keep your emotions in check. “Becoming over-emotional occurs either in the early stages of an affair when you’re still insecure or when you’re about to split up. Men feel as much as women do, but they don’t show their feelings much. But women need to be loved all the time, so when things do not work out like that, they tend to let it all out,” says Anand.
If you’re insecure in the relationship, have a chat with him and figure out what you want. Think of yourself for a change – women neglect that because they are so caught up in thinking about their man.
Change is what you need
You won’t think of this when you’re feeling extra emotional but sometimes this is what really helps. Instead of phoning your lover for the hundredth time, change your pattern. When you’re in the emotional doldrums, nothing works better than a change of scene or maybe even a change of workplace.
“I saw this guy for a few months, when out of the blue, he said that he wanted to split. I had no idea what I’d done and I was still in love so I couldn’t let go. I kept phoning him, cried for hours and bombarded him with emails. It was only after a short holiday that I managed to gather my wits and get back to normal,” says Sukanya Buragohain, a teacher.
Men and women have different ways of coping with loss. Men are perceived as stronger because they do not give in to emotional outbursts, but they take longer to recover. Whereas, women cry, which in Freudian language, is an emotional repair mechanism. But anything overdone is bad. Sometimes, it’s best to let go.