I dare you to define 'confidence'

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But how can you become attracted to them? I'm not interested in what'll just be an exclusive friendship, because I was written off by the ones of desirable age. Just ending up with everyone else's leftovers does not make for a satisfying relationship!

I fail to see much of a distinction here, actually, despite the supposedly different consequences. I can view these as two parts of a spectrum, but I'm not sure where the line is drawn between them.

I would not consider confident and attractive interchangeable. Confidence is the state of acting with assurance, having opinions without apologizing for having thought of them in the first place... it is comfort with self, with one's decisions. It is hard to trust in someone who constantly questions themselves, if that makes any sense? Thus why the greatest investment one can make is in themselves, in my opinion.


M.

"Everyone else's leftovers" is a bad way to look at it. Instead of wasting time and effort on women who will never be attracted to you, you're going for those who will be. Even more so, if you're having a hard time finding a girl, and she has a hard time finding a guy, when you two will start dating, you will both really appreciate each other. The relationship will also be more stable as a result. And cheating in this case will become a non-issue. That's a far better relationship than between two attractive people, where each person knows they can easily replace their partner.

How will I become attracted to her? Simple! I'm attracted to the fact that she's attracted to me. I start dating her, and in time, I know that she will grow on me. Unattractive people typically have better personalities, which is more important to me anyway. After all, looks aren't everything. I see escorts from time to time, and if they can get over being intimate with unattractive clients (like myself), I can easily see past the looks, and appreciate my girlfriend for her personality, as well as the fact that she likes me. All in all, it's a win-win situation.

Last edited by Aspie1 on 29 Nov 2008, 11:52 am, edited 1 time in total.

Not necessarily, since you may not have anything in common with them. That's no basis for a relationship. And if you're having to trick yourself into not noticing how unattractive they are, as prostitutes have to, that is no basis for a relationship either. Is that the best I can hope for?

most rappers are confident, thats why i act like one

If I don't end up having anything in common with the girl, then the relationship won't work out. But it will still be nice while it lasts, both for me and her. However, since it's hard to find a relationship for both me and her, it will be an incentive to find things in common and build on that. After all, when it's hard to find a relationship, it's unreasonable to expect to have everything in common. As long as I enjoy her company and feel comfortable in her presence, I'm happy. As for "tricking myself into not noticing how unattractive she is", remember: I'm unattractive too. So it would be hypocritical (not to mention ridiculous) of me to expect to have a hot girlfriend. Opposites may attract sometimes, but not when it comes to looks. People usually end up with someone of an attractiveness level similar to theirs.

That wouldn't make it a mistake by a long shot.

Whether you want to maintain reasonable doubt about her compatibility with you is one thing, but you should consider it an inviolable rule that you have to come across to her as self-confident in attitude and demeanor. After the relationship is secured, I guess you could open up a little more and be yourself.

If she couldn't know, then how could you come across that way?

Well, like I said, it's a personal distinction. There is no way I can actually categorize these things into some sort of graph or table, it's just the easiest way I can explain on here.

To clarify, though, they don't have to be mutually exclusive, it's just that the first one is basically full lack of any self confidence, as in someone who went through all their developmental stages as a child never having secured their abilities, or one example. Also, it usually comes complete with self-defeating behaviour, emotional dependency issues such as a constant need for affirmation, and even violent tendencies, which is why I say it's really undesirable.

As for the second one, I'm talking about behaviour that can be chalked up to bad experiences. These are the men who've had too many bad relationships, or live in a place where women have completely different and unrealistic standards, or who've lost their job, who started out fairly confident but who've been knocked down since. I've known men like this, and they're guarded and quiet, but not stiflingly clingy; they still have a sense of themselves and what they want.

Does this make more sense?

It doesn't define 'confidence,' or in this case purely self confidence, on any more than a personal level for me, that's the thing. Confidence is fairly arbitrary.

If she couldn't know what?

When a woman knows nothing about you, your experiences, and your interests, how you present yourself to her is all she has to go on. If your nonverbal communication and the things you say express a self-confident attitude, it's immaterial that you may have some lingering feelings of depression and despair. She cannot know this when there's nothing that communicates it. That said, if there are any slips in your nonverbals or any expressions of a non-self-assured attitude, it may confuse her—or maybe intrigue her.

For example, in most areas of life, I am pretty confident; socializing and dating is the one big exception, and that is only because I've had such a long train of failure.

It does make somewhat more sense to me now, drawing up the "sense of themselves" as a particular distinguishing factor.

When it comes to any confidence, a sense and understanding of whatever is being confided in is pretty much essential. To trust blindly is to trust very foolishly, and I've seen plenty of people (including myself) suffer from the consequences of false confidence, both in themselves and others. A good basic example of that would be how many people place trust in political and other authority figures without much knowledge of what the person is like, only what they outwardly display.

And the same can go for an individual's self confidence. It's possible to begin trusting an aspect of oneself and end up running with it until an event happens that causes further reflection and reassessment. That's a common problem everyone has now and again, but it helps to illustrate how important it is to know the self, or anything else as much as possible before truly trusting in full.

It could be hypothesized one very likely reason confidence in a man is so sexy to women is because it's a show of experience. I think that's also why it's so likely many men seem to automatically put on a show of confidence for themselves, so as to give themselves a false sense of security and 'get them out there' in the first place. If we all feared our own lack of ability, none of us would get anywhere. I'd bet that's why teenagers reach such a brash and impulsive stage where they think they're right and know it all.

Truth be told, it's the older men who're wiser, and a man with true confidence shows a particularly good likelihood of being a good father for a child. Some women seem better than others at seeing how confident a man really is, it seems.