In this episode of The Self-Confidence Project, Kimberly explores the impact of stoicism in modern dating. Learn why your understanding or application of stoicism might be sabotaging your chances of deeply connecting with women and forming the relationships you desire. Kimberly delves into how misinterpreting stoicism as emotional suppression can lead to women perceiving you as emotionally unavailable. Discover how to balance stoic composure with emotional openness and create genuine connections without losing yourself.
P.S. If you’re a man navigating dating after divorce, don’t go it alone. My free masterclass was made for you—learn how to rebuild confidence, attract the right women, and avoid common post-divorce mistakes. Watch it here.
Ready for tailored support? Book your 1:1 dating strategy call with me here and let’s map out your next steps.
See you next week,
Kimberly
Here’s the transcript:
Hi guys. Welcome back to another episode of The Self-Confidence Project. I’m your host, Kimberly, and today we’re talking about something a little different, something you may not have come across on YouTube before, or even heard other dating coaches talk about, which is stoicism. And its role in modern dating.
And what I really wanna help you unpack here is whether or not your understanding of stoicism or how you are practically applying it in modern dating is actually sabotaging your chances of deeply connecting to great women and having the relationship you truly desire. So the question is, are you a little too stoic for love?
Now before I dive into unraveling this video, if you’re brand new to this channel, welcome aboard. My name is Kimberly. I’m a dating and relationship coach for men, and I help good-hearted men attract and find deeply loving relationships. And very specifically, I support men that are dating again after a divorce, a separation, or very long term relationship.
So you’ve had relationship. Experience, but [00:01:00] maybe you haven’t had dating experience in quite some time and you just need a little guidance to get some clarity, figure a few things out so that you can just move on, get the relationship you truly desire, thrive in that relationship, and then get back to doing all the fun things you wanna do in life.
With your significant other and not worry about dating anymore. Now, um, if that sounds intriguing or interesting to you, then um, you know, stay tuned. Watch this video. But of course you are welcome to book a complimentary call with me. Um, we just get to know each other, see if I’m the right fit for you for coaching, and we talk about what that might look like.
Now, today we’re talking about why women tend to say to men, well, he’s a little emotionally unavailable. But in fact, you’re just going, what? I’m just staying calm. I’m staying grounded. And the question is, is this act of stoicism sabotaging your relationship? Now, a lot of modern men and women are looking at stoicism for strength and rightly so.
It’s [00:02:00] teaching presence, it’s teaching composure, it’s teaching. Control and emotional control. But somewhere along the line, many of us have mistaken emotional suppression for strength, and that’s where this connection breaks down. Now what stoicism actually is teaching us is at its core, stoicism isn’t about having less feelings or feeling less.
It’s about. Reacting to life less. So Marcus Aurelius said, you have power over your mind, not outside events. Right. What he’s saying is you cannot control the circumstances that happen in life. The act of God, the thunder, the bad traffic, the red light, the alarm clock that ran outta batteries and whatever the circumstance is.
But you do have power over [00:03:00] how you process these circumstances and therefore how you react and or respond to ’em. Um, and really it’s not. What happens to you in life, but how you respond to what happens to you in life. Now, the stoic man is not a cold man, okay? He’s not an emotionless man. There’s nothing helpful about suppressing and drowning our emotions, but the stoic man is very deliberate.
Now, here is the problem. Many, many men, maybe including yourself, are not really taught how to express their emotions, or you haven’t been taught how to express your emotions without kind of feeling overwhelmed or controlled by your emotions, and that’s just a product of. Our societal conditioning. It’s a product of probably how you were raised in your home, or maybe you were shamed when you did try to express your emotions.
Maybe that was sadness or anger, and then [00:04:00] people told you you were a wussy, or your mom who raised you, you know said, no, don’t you dare raise your voice or keep your anger away from me, because she may not have known how to process that. So you’re raised thinking, well, I can’t really. Express my emotions, um, and I feel controlled by my emotions.
So the only strategy I know how to enact here is to suppress my emotions. And a lot of us are thinking that that’s synonymous with stoicism. But stoicism is not emotional avoidance. Right. And in dating, um, many men I’ve noticed are using stoicism as a bit of an armor or a protection mechanism. And so how does this kind of practically show up in dating?
You’re go. Okay. Okay. So like, how does this actually play out in a dating situation? Well, you might be staying very neutral in your conversations. So for example, um, or a good example could be [00:05:00] when you build a brand new dating profile. And you see this amazing, gorgeous photo of a woman, you think, well, I really wanna match with her and I, I wanna talk to her.
And you do, and she likes you back, and you’re like very excited by it, but you suppress that excitement. In fact, when you send that first message to her and you start that conversation with her, you are very like laissez-faire. You’re very neutral. You’re very stoic in your opinion. And in fact, this woman is going like, Hmm, he doesn’t really seem that into me because you are.
Taught or you believe or you’re afraid that showing your excitement is going to be a bad thing. So you stay very neutral in conversation. And so you never share that excitement. Um, you actually don’t really open up about your needs, in fact, or your fears, which might come later down the line as you get to know somebody a little bit better and you always kind of just stay.
Unshaken, so to speak, but you never are truly opening up. [00:06:00] So to highlight this, imagine a man and a woman are on a great first date, and the woman is witty. She’s very confident, she’s very emotionally open, and you’re, you’re in fact very intelligent. You’re very thoughtful. You’re measured, you’re probably an engineer, and you and this woman are talking for hours on this first date.
But whenever the conversation turns a little personal, maybe about your dreams or a little bit about your childhood or about past hurts, you redirect, deflect or stay quiet and in fact get her to open up instead thinking, well, she doesn’t need to have me. Taking the floor in conversation, or she doesn’t need to know all these things about me.
It’s probably too much too soon. And then this woman goes home from the date thinking, wow, well this guy is. He’s nice, he’s charming, but I just can’t feel him. And so you get that dreaded text of, [00:07:00] Hey, I had a great time, but I wasn’t feeling the connection or spark that I was hoping for. And you’re going, well, what?
I was really grounded. I didn’t overshare. I stayed very composed throughout the whole night. And this woman is not reaching out to you again and you don’t really understand why. And that’s because. Women actually need to feel connection with you and we are not asking you for chaos and we’re not asking you to, ’cause there’s a scale for vulnerability in opening up emotional expression.
We are not saying go from. Not opening up at all to having this first experience of pouring your soul out to us on a first date. Most people don’t have the capacity to hold space for that with someone. They’re just getting to know, um, let alone in, in the throes of a deep, committed relationship. So it’s not that women are out there asking for you to be chaotic.
What they’re [00:08:00] needing from you and not even asking for, ’cause women don’t even necessarily know how to specifically say, Hey, I need you to feel more. Um, but they are needing presence from you. So what builds connection? I. With women is a man who really does understand how he feels and can own those feelings.
I feel excited. I feel shy, I feel nervous. I feel whatever you might be feeling, and women are needing a man to be able to reveal. Something about himself, something personal. It doesn’t have to be your most embarrassing moment or your biggest fear or, or a memory about your ex that’s, you know, gets you kind of crying or outpouring with emotion on a date.
But women want to see and feel that you can reveal something personal about yourself without losing emotional composure or control. Uh, and [00:09:00] what happens on a first date is you do want to be small and small doses, sharing some vulnerable truths about yourself, um, to build that connection so she feels connected to you without waiting until a.
Perfect moment. Um, or waiting until you’re already fully committed to one another because you think, well, if I reveal anything that’s imperfect about myself, this woman isn’t gonna like me and she’s gonna walk away from me. And, and that’s deep insecurity talking, right? So maybe when you’re on a date, you actually lean into the nerves and you might say to a woman like, wow, I was really nervous to come meet you tonight.
But I am so glad we met. In fact, this is something that my, my current partner did on our very first date, and I had no awareness of how helpful it was that he did that. But he said to me, um, you, I’m actually lost [00:10:00] for words sometimes when I’m, you know, looking at you. Um, something to that effect. He was basically leaning into the fact that he felt nervous on this date with me and.
I found it so endearing and he wasn’t like, oh, I’m so nervous, and now he’s like this blubbering mess. But he was able to say. And own, I’m nervous or you’re making me nervous, or I am at a little loss for words when I’m talking to you. And I just found that like to be the biggest compliment. Instead of thinking, oh wow, this guy is not perfect.
He’s nervous. Well that’s, I gotta move on to the next guy. I was just really happy he could own his emotions and feelings in that moment and even communicate them to me. And of course. You know, the rest is history. We’re together and we have a dog and a house, and all these wonderful things. And he leaned into that.
And so you guys can lean into that too. So you can let a woman know that she’s got you very excited or that you are a little bit nervous on that first date. And these are important things [00:11:00] to be able to share and say with a woman to build that connection. In fact, that line, that he wasn’t a line, but that truth that he shared with me.
Brought us closer together because then I wanted to make him more comfortable, and in fact, that helped the quality of our first date. Or you might say to a woman, you know, I do tend to. Um, keep things a little close to my chest, but I really wanna be better at letting people in. And that’s honesty, that’s a vulnerability in and of itself without, I mean, sharing the particular thing.
It’s saying that you are vulnerable about letting people in and actually naming it, and these things are not dramatic. They’re very real and they land really well with women because. They are rare because not many men can speak like this to women. A lot [00:12:00] of men are trying to be very tight-lipped or men swing to the.
Other opposite where it’s compliment after compliment after I’m, you know, I’m, I’m really leaning into this excitement on a date and it almost goes overboard. So you’re wanting to balance this stoic masculinity with emotional connection and yes, you can totally be calm and emotionally available. And so there’s a couple ways I want you to think about how you can apply this.
And the first is share what you feel without apologizing for it. Not, I’m sorry, I’m a little nervous, or I’m sorry, I feel so excited or whatever. Cut out that that’s what we Canadians do, right? Share what you feel without apology. Own it and be comfortable knowing that that’s your experience. Secondly, don’t suppress any discomfort that you have.
That’s a really bad strategy. In fact, instead you wanna get curious about it, what’s making me feel uncomfortable? Or [00:13:00] what? What is causing these nerves? Or what, why did that text trigger me? And then you can learn about yourself and you can get better at dealing with life circumstances versus, oh, something made me uncomfortable and.
Now I feel the shame and guilt about feeling this discomfort. So now I’m gonna suppress this. Um, and third, one of the things you can do is let people in early into your life, even in small ways and small ways, is probably the best strategy. Um, let these women into your life and let them into the story of your growth and some of the things that you’ve overcome in your life.
And I think it’s important to phrase it as, Hey, these are things I am working on and. You know, these are pains that I’ve had that I’m growing through versus, um, this emotional outpouring of, you know, using this woman or this date, almost like a therapist for you. So there’s a real difference here. You let women in to your journey and your discomforts in your [00:14:00] vulnerabilities in small ways, um, so that you are using your words to connect.
Not just to manage perception. So strength isn’t just silence. Strength is leaning in and saying, Hey, here’s how I feel, and I trust myself enough to actually say this. So if you have been. Uh, praised for being very composed in your life, yet you still find your relationships are falling flat, then this might actually be the reason.
Now stoicism isn’t the problem, but the way we might think about applying it in dating often can be, and women don’t need you to fall apart. But they do need to feel you. They need to feel your energy. They need to hear your truth. They need to trust that you can let them in without [00:15:00] losing yourself, because that creates connection while still having safety, which is something that women need from men these days.
And look, I’m not the stoic philosopher myself. I’m not pretending to be Marcus Aurelius reincarnated, but I do think that it is worth exploring this because. Most of us are living our lives somewhere between these two extremes, being totally shut down and never really sharing our true feelings, which does not get you the relationship you want, or emotionally pouring out everything to the wrong person, which can lead to trauma bonding, or just, you know, scaring that person off because it’s too much too soon.
So you don’t wanna be so closed off, man. No woman can truly connect to you. But again, it’s not about spilling your guts in every conversation, just so that you can appear open. There’s very much a balanced middle ground, and honestly, I would love to hear your guys’ take on it. So how do you navigate that tension between [00:16:00] composure?
Emotional honesty. I’d love to have you drop comments below. I am genuinely curious about, um, how you have seen this play out in your own dating life or relationships. And tell me for you men that are dating again after a divorce or separation in your prior relationship, did you lean to towards. Being the silent type, never really, truly saying how you feel, never doing so because you were afraid of your partner’s response, or that it would cause a ripple in the relationship.
And so you ultimately suffered in silence. And then did you get taught by somebody to then all of a sudden become the opposite and then outpour all of your emotions and then realize that women are thinking, Hey, I, I don’t feel this connection. This is way too much. Too soon. Have you swung the pendulum?
Or do you still feel that even in modern dating, you need to suppress all of your truth in order to genuinely connect with women? So if this brought something up for you, then please drop a [00:17:00] comment. And if you’ve ever been told that you’re too distant or, or maybe you’ve been told you’re too composed, or maybe you feel really frustrated that women are pulling away from you, even when you’re.
Being really stable and stoic and grounded by your definition. Um, then I would love to hear your thoughts below and, and look guys, if you’re ready to build that real connection, you’re really ready to kind of navigate modern dating with a lot more clarity and just inner confidence than I do. Invite you to book a strategy call with me.
Let’s talk about, let’s talk about what is keeping you a little emotionally closed off and how you can build confidence and connection with the right types of women. Look forward to seeing you guys next week. Cia.
