Confidence

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Confidence and complete delusion are two different things. delusion isn't real confidence, but it can have a similar effect. It can also have a "lets all laugh at him" effect, when the person is so deluded that he thinks he's god and most other people think he's a joke.

I could be projecting my own experiences a bit too far perhaps so I'll take that as a point. For me though I did exactly what you're indicating you and your friends did, ran at it for five or ten years though but unfortunately met very different results.

If it helps, I've had more success gaining confidence in my career than with relationships. Dating remains a work in progress, but I am seeing results, slowly. It's also about finding a more accepting 'market' for my 'wares' as it were, haha. I spent a good number of years in my 20s pining over and pursuing the wrong women for me. That really destroyed my confidence. It would be like me, without any pilot training, applying endlessly for a job as a 747 pilot. Of course my confidence would suffer after being rejected, always.

Yeah, I think for most people and especially under the added strain of AS it takes both being very accurate about where you're coming from and knowing how to be compassionate with yourself on the stuff that can't change when you get there. While I always had friends through highschool I had an experience that a bit too night and day revelatory around 19 or 20, came down with the illusion that literally everything was under my control and from either my group of friends or just culture in general I really started giving myself Densel to Ethan in Training Day type lectures - the more my body failed my demands the more coarse I got with it, really looking at correcting and obliterating my aspie traits like it was life and death of honor. Needless to say the internal macho shtick and self-bullying didn't work, even though I was surrounded by friends for a couple years, traveled to big events and new all kinds of people in high places, when brought back to a job with a highschool setting and crowd I was reduced right back to class mascot level, and from then on I had to deal with the fact that no matter how much of an adult or how tough I was inwardly I still looked like I was 20-something going on 12 to people who didn't know me and yes, plenty of "You need to toughen up" lectures from adults who didn't know that I was already quite insane with myself on that level.

I think a good portion could have just been my own naivity at that point; just about the nature of genes, why everyone else was just too self-doubting or mentally weak not to be cool and ambitious like me and my friends were , the good news I think they're over that one as well now. As far as romantic relationships though, they're incredibly strange things and it seems like the more sense you try to make the more opportunities get botched. For now I'm meaning to take a break from that, possibly for a few years, hopefully to get some things in my financial future in order to a level that may really give me a lot of the reward that I feel I might have been searching for in other ways previously.

i agree but delusion can be a two way street, and those laughing could be just as deluded or even more so then the person that from their perspective was the deluded one

in my particler example, the guy was not deluded he didnt apporch my friend as if he "was god" but apporched her as a man simply attracted to a girl, it was not the fact that she wasnt attracted to him that was wrong but the fact that she felt the need to make fun of him becuz of her own delusions that she shouldnt be ask by men not in her same league or more

its one thing refuse someone (which i hav done sometimes) its another thing to stomp on someone for trying, doing so makes u just as deluded as those who think their god

well, I'm sort of new here to WP, and you're an old hand But let me say that this post shows so much insight. Too many people, both NTs, AS, whatever fail to self reflect and examine their life. This, in and of itself, is something to take confidence in! Truly.

You're right. Some women are deluded and think no unattractive man would like a pretty girl.

The ones with the problem however target only pretty girls and have a cry because none like them and they can't understand why.

Sometimes apparently delusional confidence pays off if someone works hard enough. I knew someone who was dead broke but who later became a billionaire. The person was strangely confident of massive success even then. I walked away from a 30 minute conversation thinking there was something slightly off. But this person was right.

And with relationships I think there is some fronting at times. Flirting ---> pick up ---> sex ----> relationship (in whatever order). As you learn each step and become more confident with it, you graduate to an area where you know less and have to fake it a bit until you gain more experience. But I guess I wouldnt call that delusion.

Choice.

The concert pianist who hates crowds always has the choice to back away. His fear of crowds may be telling him to do so. But he makes the choice to conquer his unease and his nervousness and perform anyway, even though that choice doesn't guarantee a good performance. Incidentally, he also realizes he (probably) won't die of a coronary even if he completely trainwrecks. Even if his body is telling him "yes, yes you will be so mortified that your heart will seize, you'll pee your pants and you'll pass out."

The compulsive gambler can't (or won't) choose to stop gambling, despite what his wallet, his wife, or statistics may tell him. He knows damn well this is bad for him, that his chances of coming out ahead are pretty crap. He's doing it anyway. Casinos bank on this kind of behavior.

This is certainly true too! I have a friend who quite honestly has his fear mechanism turned off. He literally has almost no fear due to some sort of psychological tweak. He's a fairly successful film producer now, but not before attempting things I'd die of embarrassment for attempting. The guy is sort of an inspiration to me, really. If I could harness one quarter of his fearlessness, I'd be a lot further along.

I was at a fairly crowded bar alone, and I looked and saw three girls sitting by themselves.

I had maybe 25 oz of stout in me, and I thought for about 5 minutes about approaching them.

I just did it, I walked over and said some stupid crap and sat down and talked to them for a while. It was pretty awkward, and they teased me for being a lone-wolf,and I definitely felt uncomfortable most of the time, I didn't come off as planned.

Now looking back, it was pretty embarrassing and I'm sure I looked like some desperate weirdo, and strangely enough I somehow recognized them from school at some point but didn't know them.

Anyways I just decided to do it, but honestly it was a pretty wack night.

I would have regretted not approaching them, but since I now have the memory of looking that desperate, I kinda feel even worse.

They ended up asking me to go to another bar twice (after I didn't respond the first time as a test to see if they were just trying to be polite), and then shortly after we got to the next bar, they just left (ditched) me. I was a little intoxed at this point so it was hard to figure out exactly what was going on, but I asked her "about her boyfriend" when I saw she was texting someone, and she replied non-nonchalantly about her BF.

I ended up coming home alone, and then puking all over my bed and sleeping in vomit. It's not like I was trying to get laid. haha