Fear of feelings

Men get accused of being emotionally cloaked. Usually by women. But my experience is, no one really wants to know.
There are lots of kinds of writing. Some used to vent, some hoped for publication, some to let something personal out. Most people draw lines with their expression. They choose the size of their audience based on the content. Often how well you know some people and trust them helps limit the size of the chosen audience. It can come down just to what they can handle.
I had one writer coach me that "you don't want to let them see you go to the bathroom." Her point was there the general reading public has one comfort level, those who know you may have a greater level. It's often up to the writer to know their readership and provide only appropriate fodder.
One of those defining lines seems to be emotion. Just as there are many types of general writing, there are sub-genres of emotional writing. There is just finding the right way to express others' emotion. There is helping others "re-feel" something, to tap into what may be dormant. There is expressing emotional contact between two people. And just expressing your own emotion.
The boundaries can cross. For example, in this blog, I've expressed deep emotion about losing a friend. But discovered others had similar feelings from similar experiences, and my personal expression brought them back to those.
But I've also learned that something about our culture makes many of us, maybe most of us, uncomfortable facing many emotions. Not just our own, but those shared or raw.
I find this especially true when I share anything rhythmic or rhyming, call it poetry or lyrics. Somewhat because of copyright laws, and somewhat because I find those types of things more personal, I don't post them on this writing outlet. But if something comes out I personally like, I'll sometimes share it one on one.
What's funny to me is how uncomfortable that makes so many people because they take it personally. If there's a reference to a hair or eye color, for example, the blonde or green-eyed automatically think it's about them. And the state of our relationship may not call for expressions of current or past emotional ties. So, they squirm. If not disappear.
That's most interesting because my most recent string of personal ties has been pretty limited. So I compile, take the feelings for one and another and put them together, one verse may be about one person, the chorus about another.
But there are those that are completely about one person or one experience. I used to practice the philosophy that if someone caused something to be created, it was in part theirs and they deserved to see it.
But despite constant conversations throughout my life that included requests of "just be honest with me" or "don't be afraid to express yourself," that isn't how life works. People think they want to know. They don't.
Maybe it's our society that makes us afraid of feelings. But even those who are societal rebels have blanched at my emotional honesty. Maybe it's that there's so little honest expression, it's the unexpected that can't be dealt with. Or maybe we're just a repressed, withdrawn, afraid bunch of people.
I don't want to be that pessimistic. But I want to respect others' boundaries. I want to be honest with them. I don't want to chase them away.
So there's an entire world of words out there just waiting for their father to die. Because only when no one has to look the holder of the expressed emotions in the eye do those who earned them feel comfortable with them.
I wish I knew how people feel about me. I wish they knew how I feel about them. But when we go from a superficial shout to an honest whisper, it seems no one wants to listen.