I RECENTLY STARTED crying during a festive dinner with friends in a crowded city-centre restaurant.
And believe me, it came as just as big a shock to me as it did to them.
A well-meaning but fairly innocuous question opened the floodgates, and abject horror descended when I realised that, in this instance, the urge to cry was greater than my ability to suppress it.
Stricken and mortified in equal measure, I held up one finger to indicate I definitely intended to get a handle on the situation as quickly as humanely possible.
My friends gazed back at me; their eyes brimming with both surprise and concern.
Casting my own eyes upwards in a bid to drain them of tears, I gritted my back teeth and pushed a toe firmly into the floor beneath me in an effort to redirect my focus.
For about five seconds it worked, but as is often the case in these instances, embarrassment caused me to dive back in too quickly.
Opening my mouth to respond to the initial question, I heard my voice catch again, and realised I was going to need another moment or two to compose myself.
Christ Almighty, it felt like an eternity in mortifying hell.
With Christmas songs adding to the din of the dining room and a group of businessmen beside us loudly celebrating the fact that their Out of Office notifications had just kicked in, my expression of emotion felt wholly out of place.
And while I am certain nobody aside from those at my table saw my tears or, indeed, heard my high-pitched assurances that I was fine, it genuinely felt like a spotlight had been shone directly into my face.
In retrospect, the incident lasted a mere sixty seconds if that, and I’m fairly certain this was due to how my friends responded to the sudden overt display of emotion.
They didn’t move around the table to hug me (Thanks be to Christ) or repeatedly ask if I was OK (I clearly wasn’t); instead they made jokes at their own expense for inadvertently setting the moment in motion.
In the face of a friend’s sudden outpouring of anguished tears in the middle of what was supposed to be a festive celebration, they went for humour; unadorned, unsophisticated, but ultimately understanding humour.
They jokingly castigated themselves for daring to ask a run-of-the-mill question and welcomed my exceptionally feeble jokes – made through a veil of tears – until normal programming was able to resume, and I could explain myself at a decibel not exclusive to dogs.
As far as I’m concerned, their reaction was perfect, much-needed, and in many ways, the archetypal Irish response to an awkward situation.
Joke yourself hoarse, until – all together – you get the show back on the road.
Look momentarily stricken, and then dive head-first in with some ham-fisted but ultimately hilarious remarks, and wait until the whole thing blows over.
It worked for me, and almost – almost – as quickly as the tears started, they stopped, and our night could move seamlessly onwards and upwards.
But what about you? How would you have wanted your friends to have reacted in that moment?
