OP, you rock! It gives me great hope and happiness to see what smart young women like you are saying, and how you're holding your own with, and taking no shit from, ignoramuses like your friend. You write really well too, with verve, style and a distinctive voice - and humor. Good on/for you!

Also, what's with your friend's bellyaching about crying? There's no shame or harm in crying. No one ever died or got sick from crying. He's not gonna melt from it. Crying is emotionally and physically cathartic, in fact.

Crying is normal and of benefit regardless of sex, too. In fact, contrary to the claim that men aren't allowed to cry, the reality is that men have often been given far more license to cry in public than women, as the case of former USA Congressman and House Speaker John Boehner shows. Boehner's nickname was "The Weeper of the House": https://youtu.be/FyxioZZdiTg https://youtu.be/QQRFqD55Se0

My father, who was a US Navy bomber pilot in the Pacific in WW2, used to cry at the drop of a hat. In the 1960s, he'd start crying when the family watched "The Patty Duke Show" and Sally Field in the TV shows "Gidget" and "The Flying Nun." My young siblings and I, being thoroughly rotten and disrespectful kids, would hand him tissues and say "dear, dear, Dad, it's all right" whilst snorting, rolling our eyes and silently laughing our asses off...

I've done a whole lot of crying in my life. I've sobbed heavily, loudly and embarrassingly in all sorts of public places like on the NYC subway and the Metropolitan Museum and London's Royal Albert Hall. Nothing untoward happened as a result. And I've always been a really ugly crier too - lots of snot, my nose balloons in size, and my eyes swell up so much that decades ago one of my sisters said if a country song were ever to be written about me it would be called, "Been Cryin' So Long Need Ice Packs On My Eyes" LOL. But I'm still standing and can attest that all my crying has not injured or diminished me.