"Why are men useless in an emotional crisis?"

Article here. Excerpt:

'"Cheer up, it might never happen."

Yes, my best friend really did proffer those priceless words of wisdom as we sat having a drink during one of my periodic lows. The fact that I had been made redundant recently – that it had actually happened! - didn’t seem to have occurred to him.

Forget the shame, drop in income, bout of depression and all-round disillusionment, he was implying. What mattered was that a few drinks, reminiscences of teenage escapades and some immature banter would easily rectify things. And he was right – too much introspection does no one any good.
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We might think we have a higher tolerance of physical pain but, when it comes to emotional pain, we’re genetically stunted. It’s not that we can’t handle it, just that we seem unable to share in others’. We’re not indifferent to people’s predicaments but our instinctive reaction is selfish: rather than "poor you" we want to say "thank God that didn’t happen to me" and then proceed to mistake false cheeriness for empathy.'