Crying at Parties, Laughing at Funerals: The Unspoken Rules of Feeling

Feelings Are Weird... Let’s Talk About It

You know those moments when you laugh in an awkward situation? Like in a serious business meeting, or when your teacher is telling a sad story, and you really don’t want to make eye contact with your friend across the classroom. Hopefully, I’m not the only one who does this. But it makes me wonder—why do we label certain emotions as ‘wrong’?

Laughter is a gift. We associate it with happiness, joy, and excitement. But if that’s the case, why do we also laugh when we’re uncomfortable, embarrassed, or even scared? Is laughter really just about happiness? Or is it simply another form of emotional release? Feelings contradict themselves all the time. We cry when we’re happy, laugh when we’re nervous, and feel numb instead of sad. Yet, we still put emotions into invisible boxes, deciding which reactions are ‘acceptable’ in which scenarios. And even when we understand that emotions don’t work that way, we subconsciously act as if they do. (Yes, even the emotionally mature ones. I know you apologize when you cry.)

From what I’ve observed about people, society, and human nature, we are judgmental creatures—whether we mean to be or not. But can I really blame us? Society grooms us to see emotions a certain way. Men are told to ‘man up,’ reinforcing the idea that emotions equal weakness. Women are labeled ‘crazy’ for showing any emotion other than happiness. If you’re not happy, you better ‘fake it till you make it,’ and god forbid you grieve for too long—at that point, you’re just dwelling. Even though these ideas are pushed onto us, we internalize them in our own ways. How many times have you gone through something and thought, ‘I shouldn’t feel this way’? How often have you smiled through anger to avoid seeming ‘difficult’? So maybe the real question isn’t just ‘why do we label certain emotions as wrong?’ but who taught us to think that way in the first place?

During my senior year of high school, my teacher was giving a presentation on mental health and suicide awareness. The classroom was silent—everyone listening attentively. And then there was me… laughing at the worst possible moment. Right as my teacher shared a heartbreaking story about a former student who had passed away, I let out a laugh. Just to clarify—I didn’t find it funny. What no one knew was that I had my own experience with losing a close friend to the same battle. And at the time, my only coping mechanism was to laugh. Horrible, right? But is it really?

Can emotions exist without categories? Joy mixed with sadness, fear mixed with excitement, grief mixed with acceptance. When we witness someone reacting in an unexpected way—laughing at a funeral, crying at a party, staying calm in the face of chaos—it disrupts our perception of how things should be. It forces us to confront the paradox of human nature and reality itself. We try to fit emotions into neat little boxes, but the truth is, the box will always overflow. No reaction has an absolute meaning—everything is contextual, fluid, ever-changing, like the universe itself. We treat emotions as separate, but they’re interwoven. Have you ever gone through a breakup and felt both relief and sadness? Or cried tears of joy after receiving good news? If emotions aren’t truly separate, then why do we try so hard to categorize them?

What would happen if we let go of emotional “rules”? Would we feel more deeply if we stopped trying to define every emotion? Personally, I think I’d feel more free if I wasn’t expected to follow the rigid expectations of society. How would you express your emotions if there were no rules?