“I’m Fine” and Other Lies We Tell Ourselves: When Stoicism Becomes a Mask
Helping men recognize emotional suppression disguised as strength
It starts small. A stranger at work asks how you’re doing, and your mouth answers before your brain catches up—
“I’m fine.”
You might even smile. Just enough to satisfy the question without inviting more.
Maybe you are fine. But more likely, you’re not. Not really.
Maybe your chest has felt tight for days. Maybe you haven’t slept through the night in a week. Maybe your car radio is the only thing loud enough to drown out whatever storm is swirling in your gut.
Still—“I’m fine.”
That phrase, practiced and polished like a business card, becomes a ritual. A disguise. A kind of magic trick where you vanish behind the mask of someone who has it all together.
It works for a while.
But masks, like lies, have a weight. Sooner or later, they get heavy.
The Myth of the Strong, Silent Man
I once read that cowboys, the old-school, black-and-white kind, didn’t talk much. They’d ride all day through dust and fire, get shot twice, and grunt something like “It’s not bad” as their lung collapsed.
That image stuck with me as a boy. It was reinforced by the movies we watched, the dads we saw, the coaches we feared. Real men didn’t cry. Real men didn’t ask for help. Real men could carry it all—whatever “it” was—and never stumble.
It’s strange how early that message gets encoded. By the time you're ten, you already know the rules. If you fall and cry, you're a wimp. If you admit you're scared, you're weak. If you're hurting, you'd better suck it up.
So we learn to perform stoicism. Not the real kind—the virtue rooted in wisdom and calm—but the dollar-store variety that looks like silence and shrugs. We tell ourselves this is what strength is. We confuse restraint with repression. Endurance with invisibility.
But eventually, the strong, silent man starts to rot from the inside.
“I’m Fine”: The Most Dangerous Lie
I remember sitting in the parking lot of a courthouse once, dress shirt clinging to my back, hands resting on the wheel. I had just been handed freedom—legal severance, clean and complete—and yet I felt like I'd been hollowed out with a spoon.
And still, if you'd asked me how I was doing, I would've smiled and said:
"I'm fine."
It wasn’t just a lie. It was a cover.
Because what I actually felt was grief so sharp it made breathing an act of war. I felt rage, betrayal, failure, guilt, relief—and the shame of feeling any of those things at all. But no one needed to know that. No one wanted the whole messy truth.
“I’m fine” was easier. More efficient.
It allowed me to go through the motions—work, church, dinners with friends—without scaring anyone off. Without making anyone uncomfortable. Without having to admit that I was scared, too.
That lie, repeated often enough, becomes muscle memory. You don’t even know you're doing it anymore.
It’s a reflex.
And it's killing us.
The Cost of Wearing the Mask
When men say "I'm fine" but aren't, the damage doesn't just live in our heads. It settles into our bodies. It sits behind our eyes and coils in our gut. It shows up as insomnia, back pain, high blood pressure. As clenched jaws and lost tempers. As the extra drink at night or the disappearing act when life gets too loud.
According to the CDC, men are four times more likely to die by suicide than women.¹ They're less likely to seek mental health support, more likely to abuse substances, and often isolate themselves when they're struggling.²
Why?
Because asking for help feels like failure. Because breaking the silence feels like breaking the code.
We become prisoners of our own performance.
We smile for the photo, laugh at the joke, nod in agreement—and then sit alone in the car afterward, wondering why the hell we feel so far away from everything.
Relationships crack under the weight of what isn’t said.
We get distant. Defensive. We avoid intimacy, because intimacy demands honesty, and we’re not even honest with ourselves.
Eventually, the mask becomes the man.
And he forgets who he was without it.
Stoicism vs. Suppression: What’s the Difference?
Here’s the irony. Real stoicism—the kind the philosophers wrote about—is not about pretending. It’s about perceiving clearly, accepting what is, and responding with wisdom. It’s about resilience, not repression.
Marcus Aurelius never said, “Pretend everything is fine.”
He said, “You have power over your mind—not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”³
Suppression is different. It’s pushing emotion down until it calcifies. It’s saying, “This doesn’t matter,” when it absolutely does.
It’s the difference between managing a fire and locking it in a closet.
One creates space. The other builds pressure.
True emotional strength isn't about being unshaken. It's about being honest—about owning what hurts, what scares us, what makes us want to throw a punch or curl into a ball.
Men don’t need to be less emotional. We need to be less afraid of emotion.
Learning to Speak the Truth
So what do we do?
We start by noticing. Catch yourself when you say “I’m fine” and ask—am I?
Ask it in the mirror. Ask it in the quiet of your car. Ask it to someone who’s earned the right to hear the answer.
Find a safe place to practice being honest. That might be therapy. It might be a journal. It might be a friend who’s already told you their story, who won’t flinch when you tell yours.
Start with small truths:
“I’m tired.”
“I’m overwhelmed.”
“I’m angry and I don’t know why.”
Over time, that muscle builds. Truth becomes less scary. Vulnerability stops feeling like a threat and starts to feel like air.
We don’t need to collapse into a puddle every time someone asks how we’re doing. But we do need to stop pretending the dam isn’t cracking.
Because it is.
And if we don’t learn to let the truth out in sips, it will escape in a flood.
Conclusion
Let me paint you a final picture.
You’re in line at the grocery store. You run into someone from your past. They ask the question, out of politeness or habit:
“How are you?”
And maybe, just maybe, you pause.
You breathe.
And instead of lying, you say something true.
Maybe it’s just: “It’s been a tough week.”
Maybe it’s: “I’m working through some stuff.”
It doesn’t have to be a confessional. Just honest.
That moment—that tiny sliver of truth—might be the first brick you lay on a new road. One that doesn’t require masks or myths. One where you get to be the whole, messy, flawed, feeling human you are.
Strength doesn’t mean silence.
It means showing up—even when your voice shakes.
Even when your hands do, too.
Sources:
CDC. “Suicide Mortality in the United States, 2000–2020.”
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db398.htmNational Institute of Mental Health. “Men and Mental Health.”
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/men-and-mental-healthMarcus Aurelius. Meditations.
