Tears can mean so many things in the complex human emotional spectrum.
A person may cry because they're overjoyed, or deeply sad, or grieving, Tears may fall over a lost dog, or a found dog, or losing the 90th round of Tetris attack in a row.
Crying happens.
One Redditor asked:
How did you make someone cry?
Here were some of those answers.
Happy Tears
"I heard it second-hand from my mom, but I made my grandfather cry (in a good way)."
"I had taken him for his monthy doctor appointment in the big city."
"My cousin just had a baby girl, so he was showing the nurses photos of her exclaiming:"
"I'm a great grandfather!"
"I turned to him and said"
"You were already a great grandfather."
"He didn't say anything but later, Mom told me he cried when he got home."- The2kman
Assuming The Worst
"I worked at a dq."
"As we had a new employee at the time, someone who had gone to the same school as me, I was telling my coworkers who the new employee was."
"I said her name out loud."
"She had been the lobby, just out of sight, heard her name, and assumed I was talking bad about her."
"Started bawling and walked out on her shift."
"She did not last very long after that."- RugunderthePorch
Mean Without Reason
"In 3rd Grade someone in my class told me to ignore a friend of mine for a whole week to see how they'd react."
"I was a baby-back jerk in 3rd grade and normally just did what people asked of me, so I went ahead and ignored my bro in class, recess, and on the bus."
"It hit him hard to the point that he had a full on breakdown."
"Actually still friends with the guy to this day."
"Not sure if he remembers this incident back in 3rd grade, like 15 years ago."
"But I still think about it occasionally, might bring it up next time we hang out and see what he says."- Negan1995
Something Else At Play
"I work at a theater."
"A guest had their cell phone on with max screen brightness and they were sitting in the lower rows so everyone behind them could see it."
"Naturally, I asked them to turn their phone off or stow it completely."
"They instantaneously started crying instead."
"This guest was a woman in her early 20s."- Blacktimus_Prime
Done Their Best
"Casual acquaintance in my friend group in high school cut her own fringe."
"It was so bad I laughed."
"I genuinely didn't mean to 'haha' in her face, it just slipped out in my shock at how bad she'd botched it."
"I felt so bad about it I took her to my hair dresser after school and they tried to fix it."
"There wasn't much they could do."- PimplePopperInNeed
Misinterpreted
"We were doing that thing where you give a gift to someone else, and they do the same, don't remember what it was called."
"I was gifted one of those stamp collecting 'books', more like a magazine.'
"It was a really cute girl and i really liked the gift so with excitement when i received it i asked 'Where did you buy this?!?'"
"Which apparently she thought was me making fun of the gift, so she cried."
"I just wanted to know where she got it so i could get the stamps to complete the collection."
"This was before high school and to this day I cringe when I remember trying to explain myself and no one would listen."
"I never even found out where to get the damn things so I had to throw it away."- TheWeirderAl
Pride
"I graduated high school."
"That's obviously not special, but the year before I graduated, my brother was involved in a serious accident that left him quite crippled."
'He put off getting his degree/GED, so now he'll never have it."
"My dad cried big time when I walked across the stage."- EnsonAmata
Sweet As Pie
"I was in the vet with my 12-week old kitten and my really stressed out husband because my kitten was peeing blood."
"There was a bunch of other stuff happening in our lives and everyone was really stressed."
"We were waiting for the vet to come in and I was freaking out over the kitten."
"I thought he had urinary crystals like my older cat."
"And I was holding him and crying and I was talking about how if he had urinary crystals he might die because he was so little and my husband was basically like 'nothing is going to happen to him, he's our baby' and started crying."
"It was actually super sweet because we had just adopted out his mom and sister and he was the last foster, saved his pregnant mom from the street, and that was pretty much when my husband decided we were keeping him."
"He was ok, btw."
"The vet couldn't find any sign of infection or crystals and just kept asking me if I had dropped him."
"I told her no, but that he threw himself into the ground pretty hard a lot while playing."
"She was kind of giving me the side-eye and then he tried to get down off the exam table, tripped over himself and fell down."
"She was basically like, 'yeah, clumsy little a**hole bruised his bladder, he'll be fine'."
"He was, other than the fact that he's still clumsy over a year later."- KittyChimera
Unwitting Feelings
"I unknowingly friend-zoned a girl hard in college."
"I didn't find out until a while later, but she had a bit of a crying freakout during class shortly after and ran out."
"I only know because my now wife was in her class."- mattreyu
Reasons My Child Is Crying
"During my pediatrics rotation in medical school, we spent a day at a day care."
"I was chaperoning a bunch of preschoolers on the playground and one of them asked me to push her on a swing.'
"While doing so, I decided to make small talk since I had no idea how to interact with children, still don't."
'I said 'So, about to start elementary school huh?'"
"'Which school are you going to?'"
"She had a look of complete shock, stopped the swing, and screamed 'I don't know!!!' then broke down in tears and ran away from me."
"My instincts kicked in and I immediately walked in the opposite direction nonchalantly so the employees wouldn't suspect me. I didn't go into pediatrics."- amediocre
Not being proud of one's past.
"In middle school, I was a bully to two guys."
"One in Sunday School, and another in Summer camp."
"I just tormented them and acted really rude to them, and other times joined in on it."
"I had been responsible for instances where I would see them visibly sobbing because I took part in it."
"I'm not proud of it, especially knowing that I was on the receiving end of it for so much of my life from my family and other people in middle school."
"Being young is complicated, and I don't think I can ever fully forgive myself for projecting so many of my inner demons out onto other people."
"If I could go back in time, I would take it all back."
"IDK, I like to think I'm a good person, other times, I think I'm a piece of sh*t."
"But all I can hope is that the people I tormented are doing well, and have at least started to heal from me being a piece of shit to them."- CivilDeer
That's what friends are for.
"I made my best friend cry, in kind of a good way."
"Back in early September I was at her place for a few days, long distance friendship, and one night we just got home from a whole day w/ friends and her new fling/boyfriend."
"For a good part of the day I wasn't doing so well mentally, because I felt a bit like a third-wheel, and I felt worthless and unlovable because my friends already have a S/O and they're obviously loved, funny, interesting, charismatic people etc."
"So when we were finally alone, a bit drunkily, I bursted into tears opening up to her on what was on my mind for a while and during that day."
"I also opened up on how seriously terrified I was that one day she would just abandon me for whatever reason."
"I guess it was also her empathy and the fact that she saw me cry that made her cry as well at that point, and told me that she had the same fear and that she could never abandon me because she loves and cares about me too much to ever do such a thing."
"We ended up talking for hours that night, and the day after she made sure I was okay."
"I know, it's not that interesting of a story, but it's 4:30 am and I'm an emotional mess that cried again just thinking about that night."
"So, yeah, take it for what it is."- AdorBubblez
"I'm good at it apparently."
"I was talking to a friend I haven't seen in a while and he sorta let out in a roundabout way that he was anxious about not seeing me again, I told him that we would never not be friends."
"He started crying."- Georfe5113
Now That's Cold.
"My old time friend and I got into a fight and he said my dog sounded like a pig."
"His dog died that day so I said in the middle of the class 'oh yeah well at least my dogs alive.'
"#NoRegrets."
Sports can often end in crying...
"I told a girl that she was dribbling a basket ball wrong in gym class in 6th grade."- Interstellar-Weirdo
Bad day?
"By throwing a paper airplane. made our teacher cry."
"It didn’t hit her or anything..it just fell.'
"I laughed and she cried because of disrespect."- Tonches
When a teacher makes a difference.
"I was in the 6th grade and took state testing that year."
"My state test math score went from basic, about 190-250 points, to advanced, about 500-600 points, in that year alone."
"In my 7th-grade year when I got the test scores, I showed my 6th-grade math teacher the score difference."
"She started crying because she was so shocked that she helped me get such high scores in a class I hated and a class I never thought I was good at."
"She was so proud of me too for sticking with it."
"To this day she is still one if my favorite teachers."- Falsehood-Bish
Traumatizing!
"I sat in someone's seat in 1st grade and refused to get out of it so he could sit down."
"I didn't feel like moving because he had a good view."
"He started crying because I wouldn't get up, and then ended up working himself up so much by bawling hysterically that he threw up and we all had to evacuate the classroom while the janitor cleaned it."- caterpillarbra
These were some interesting stories!
Do you have similar stories to share? Let us know in the comments!