Sand in My Eyes/Playing With

Basic Trope: A character (usually male) is seen crying, but immediately denies it.

• Straight: Alice catches Bob crying, but Bob insists that something is in his eye.
• Exaggerated: Alice catches Bob pounding his fist on the floor, intensely wailing, torrents of tears running from his eyes, and Bob still insists that something's in his eye.
• Justified: Bob doesn't want to be seen crying because Men Don't Cry.
  • Alternatively, there's a grain of sand literally in Bob's eyes.
• Inverted: Bob is embarrassed that he got sand in his eye by accident, and tries to cover it up by saying that he's crying.
  • Bob's eyes are watering, and Alice asks, unironically, "Sand in your eye?"
• Subverted: Bob tries to make up an excuse, but Alice tells him that it's OK to cry.
• Doubly Subverted: Even though he appears to accept crying as OK; he still rubs his eyes and insists that there is sand in his eyes.
• Parodied: Bob is seen crying, and denies it by saying that something is in his eye. As it turns out, there really was something in his eye.
• Deconstruction: There really is sand in his eyes; he's not actually sad about anything.
• Reconstruction: When he starts to cry, he clandestinely throws sand in his eyes.
• Averted: Bob flat out admits that he's crying.
• Enforced: "If people see this character crying, they'll think he's weak." "Have him say that something's in his eye."
• Lampshaded: "Lemme guess... there's something in your eye, isn't there?"
• Invoked: Alice throws sand in Bobs eyes to make it look like he was crying.
• Defied: Men Don't Cry.
• Discussed: "Why is it that they always say that something's in their eye? Can't they just admit that they're crying?"
• Conversed: ???