Emotional suppression to look unbothered in front of others is vanity, from a stoic perspective, and it means you didn’t understand anything about stoicism.

Aurelius understood his emotions and even expressed them, as is natural to do, he just advocated that one should have control of them. Equanimity, which is a concept that transcends stoicism.

You are preaching the fucked up “bro” version of stoicism which advocates to “shove down all your emotions and never express them”. This is incorrect, maybe actually read meditations and Epictetus’ Discourses and The Enchiridion instead of disrespecting the philosophy with this misleading bullshit that encourages unhealthy behavior.

This always frustrates me, people assuming that stoicism is just not showing feelings and not caring about things. It's fucked up and not correct at all. I'd also recommend Seneca's Letters from a Stoic although I found it a bit drier than the ones you recommend.

Doesn't help that the English adjective "stoic" is used to describe exactly that, usually with a very positive connotation, to boot.

Couldn't agree more with you both though, in my experience Stoicism offers some of the most broadly-applicable pragmatic advice of all the thought traditions I've encountered (with shoutouts to a few others, Buddhism being one, parts of which add up to similar practical advice).

The misunderstanding of it is kind of a sad tragedy, given how many of us could benefit from the teachings. Plus it's very secular (unless I misremember), which ought to make it more accessible. Bummer.