manblink

Men tend to try not to cry. In doing so they come up with different mechanisms to hide their emotions. None is more obvious than the manblink (or man-blink). The manblink consists of wide-eyed blinking by a man when trying not to let tears slip from his eyes. The thought process being that by blinking heavily and often, the tears will be reabsorbed.

Joey did the manblink to cover his real emotions at the end of 'Old-Yeller'