One of the most intriguing emotions that human beings have is jealousy. This is a very common emotion among human beings, but this is also the most unpredictable emotion we feel. Most of us express emotion in a suppressed manner. We don't want people to know that we felt jealous of them, rather we just want to express our jealousy in form of anger, hatred, and the desire to take revenge against them. The problem with this emotion is we are afraid to express or show it, much more to tell others about it. As a result, we keep it in our heart, try to express a jovial face, but in the end we become more jealous and anger creeps in. This is the reason why there are some who would resort to violence due to suppressed jealousy in their hearts.
Yet, many times we express jealousy differently under different conditions. For instance, when a woman who feels jealousy of a friend who is close to her husband, she would keep her jealousy within her while the woman is there, but when she is with another friend, she would outburst what she feels. The primary reason why we try to express jealousy different before other people is because our other emotions and values are fighting against jealousy. Take the example cited, the jealous woman has to keep her control in the face of other people as part of civility and social values she has, but these social manner sand values are reduced to nothing when he is with a friend.
And the problem becomes worst for most men who are expected to feel or act the other way. Gender socialization becomes the focal reason why men don't want others to express jealousy on others. When people are expected to act differently, there emotions become subject to the scrutiny of people. As a result, they tend to become more repressive and suppressed in showing jealousy in different situations. This can be found in families where mothers or women are expected to act as models to their children, instead of showing jealousy – and the string of emotions attached to it – they have to act as they are fine to avoid affecting their children' emotions.
From what I have observed, the greatest problem human beings have with this emotion is not that it is hard to express it, but because we don't want to acknowledge that we feel it. Even if we already know within ourselves that we are jealous of something or someone, we try to tell others that we are fine. This is a common mistake on how we deal with our jealousy. We want others to feel that we are jealous, but we don't want to acknowledge that it is really there. This can be considered to be part of our desire for self-protection. We don't want to open up before others. In fact, most of us won't acknowledge that we are jealous because we don't want to confront the reason of that feeling, especially if the subject is a person.
In the UAE context, jealousy is more focused on material things. In Oriental weddings or UAE in particular, extravagant spending and preparations become the center of emotional envy and jealousy among other people. Yet, people who attended the wedding cannot show their envy, but rather they would do weddings and occasions that are of match to the former one, in terms of preparations, spending, and glamor. By matching or even exceeding the former showcase of pomp and grand, the jealousy of the person is expressed – and it builds another string of jealousy in hearts of other people.
