For us males, it's a matter of socialization.
The invisible training
Primary: our fathers, grandfathers, and uncles unconsciously teach us that a man is composed in his emotions and must contain them.
Secondary: movies, friends, books. Everything tells us it's feminine to expose our emotions. When we do, we're insulted and demolished with mockery.
Despite the clichés on the topic, I don't see this teaching as inherently negative.
Self-control as a tool
Fine, if it's pathological it's a problem, and feeling masculine because you repress something is idiotic. Machismo is unmitigated nonsense — for years I dealt with half-wits without self-control who pointed out how unmanly being vegetarian was. Quite ridiculous, since any minority position based on rationality demands iron character and willpower.
But in most cases, an excellent filter is quite useful in avoiding the escalation of emotional situations. Starting with preventing self-catalytic collective meltdowns driven by emotion — see anti-vaxxers, meetings, or condo assemblies.
The vomit of moods
There's a trend in our society telling us how important it is to always be direct and ready to communicate every tiny emotional breath to everyone around us. The result is clear on every social network: everyone keeps telling us how they feel — how happy, sad, excited, depressed they are.
It's a continuous noise, a vomit of moods that prevents us from seeing when someone is truly depressed and needs help, or when something genuinely exceptional has happened and should be celebrated.
If everything is incredible or terrible, everything loses meaning. We no longer have a compass.
The like paradox
People feel entitled to always say everything they feel, even when it's temporary emotions. We're convinced that this way everyone will share and everything will be more real and intense. But what happens is rather a storm of cheap likes and hearts. Banal comments. Repetition of scripts without memorization.
And then — I recommend the experiment to everyone — you magically discover that nobody remembers what they liked. While almost everyone remembers that one unpopular, countercurrent phrase or post without market screaming that actually made them think. Funny.
Know when, don't repress
I'm not saying we need to repress emotions. Rather, to know when to communicate them and how. Our species intelligence manifests also in reducing noise and banality.
The emotion of the moment often passes. Something relevant does not. Strong self-control allows you to distinguish the two.
