First I'd say hi as a first post, I was imtroduce myself(male) but jumping into a conservation feels a bit less scary.

truffle wrote:

I think there’s more than one type of empathetic crier. The first type is a person who just feels the emotions of another crying person just by being around them, without needing to know the specifics of why the person is upset and without even needing to talk to them. The second type is a person who can maintain some initial emotional detachment from a crying person, but then loses this detachment once they start to relate personally to something that the crying person says. I hope that makes sense. I think your counselor is in the second category, as he could maintain his composure while watching you sob repeatedly, and only cried himself once he got some new information from you that he could relate to.
 
I’m in the first category. When I’m with someone, I’m sensitive about way they look at me, their facial expressions, and their tone of voice.?

I'd say I'm probably more the second type, not that I can't pickup on emotional responses in people but theres definitely a big difference between just seeing someone crying(which does get a response) and knowing the reasons for it although those reasons don't have to be put into words.

I can definitely understand the original posters point about crying infront of men, personally I would say a lot of the background to who I am now is a response to years of building up an emotional shield to deal with being overly sensitive when I was younger(shy, prone to crying under stress) and the embarrisment/bullying this caused. I'm guessing this is somewhat universal but just taking to more extremes with those who suffer from it more?