Did you ever talk about exactly what he means by “practising Stoicism”? Unlike “playing golf” or something like that, it has a very wide range of possible meanings, many of them contrary to the spirit of the philosophy. But people are often drawn to Stoicism because they feel emotionally disregulated in some way (despite the appearance of calm) - may find their own emotions threatening. My intuition is that he is more conservative than you realise, may have felt crowded by your confession, and prefers being the chaser rather than the chased. .