Defying the odds

[Cthomson]

In every dating guide I have ever read confidence has been the key factor in what makes men attractive. But as a man with little to no confidence how can someone like me compete with the men who are naturally good at finding and dating women?

[bac]

There are plenty of women who are turned on by guys who are not confedent.

As for me, I can like and get turned on sexually only by shy guys.

[Cthomson]

so do you think dating guides use this as part of there schemes to get you to buy? or is you're preference a less common one?

[boogieboy]

You have to FAKE the confidence until you get the confidence. The women dont know youre not confident, so you dont need to let them know. Go find a Pick up artist book, you probably just dont know what to say to them.

[stapelfahrer drew]

The whole guys must have confidence thing sure gets thrown around a lot. I wish I knew exactly what everyone means by confidence. Confidence in what? Themselves? What about themselves.

 

Confidence comes from success. If you haven't had successes, its pretty damn hard to gain confidence. So what is a man to have then? Faith?

[Cthomson]

You have to FAKE the confidence until you get the confidence. The women dont know youre not confident, so you dont need to let them know. Go find a Pick up artist book, you probably just dont know what to say to them.

 

and what would you recommend? most pickup lines are too cocky, or are made as a joke.

[Sam Spade]

Depends what kind of confidence you're talking about.

I'm quite confident, yet you'll never see me to be "the life of the party" or to go talk to every good looking girl in the room. Part of my confidence is simply the unwillingness to jump through the hoops and go through the motions to get female attention (so I often don't, but that's okay because plenty of women respond well to the silent guy that looks like he know what he's doing; but it does take longer).

 

Now if you genuinely lack any confidence what-so-ever, that will affect your odds. Girls need to know who's da boss, eventually.

[Sam Spade]

The whole guys must have confidence thing sure gets thrown around a lot. I wish I knew exactly what everyone means by confidence. Confidence in what? Themselves? What about themselves.

 

Confidence comes from success. If you haven't had successes, its pretty damn hard to gain confidence. So what is a man to have then? Faith?

 

 

True. Confidence without basis is impossible - or a fakery that is really easy to see through.

 

That said, confidence cannot and should not be based solely on accomplishments, because this is just as shaky.

 

The most important type of confidence is basically to have the belief that you could handle whatever comes your way. External measures of success merely affirm this belief, but they should not be a precondition.

 

I hate poetry more than anything in the world, but even I would acknowledge that the below poem by Kipling is one of the best poems ever written, and fortuitously, one of the best manuals on how to be a man:

 

IF

 

IF you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or being hated, don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;

If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

 

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

 

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,

if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Edited December 17, 2009 by Sam Spade