Poise wasn't researched. It was lived.

“I've always been the one who over-gives. The one who reads the room, takes on the weight, makes himself useful, and then wonders why he's disappeared from his own relationship. It took a long run of dating, some of it painful, and a stretch of therapy before I could see it as a pattern rather than a personality.

That was the thing that actually changed how I date. Not better technique, but being able to name what I do under pressure (the Pleaser, the Hyper-Achiever) and catch it while it's happening.

It's still work. But it's work on something real, which ‘be more confident’ never gave me. Poise is the tool I wish I'd had.”