"... Men may perceive women to be inferior when it comes to emotion. But like the second law of thermodynamics, all that built up emotion is going to leak out some time in the future. So in the long run, I think women have an edge over men dealing with emotion. But in the short term it is men who edge women out with self control. There is a downside here. Apply too much control and you might emotionally overheat and become brittle when you cool down leaving yourself open to cracking. Hard objects become brittle and crack under stress. ..." ~ http://seldomlogical.com/2009/04/21/getting-stuff-done-with-... [4] on Fear.

Highly 'emotionally controlled people' crack, but not straight away. Maybe years down the track. So spending time with old mil-vets might be a different story.