The line between confidence and arrogance

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I want to be more confident around women and in life in general but I'm worried I'll come across as an arrogant douchebag or a meathead jock.

What is the line between confidence and arrogance? How can I be confident without becoming arrogant?

Confidence = I'm as good as everybody else
Arrogance = I'm better than everybody else

Confidence is realistic and healthy, arrogance is delusional.
Think of the golden mean, everything in moderation, nothing in excess.

Being confident is having the ability to help others making use of your strengths.

Being arrogant means showing off your strengths without helping anybody.

Arrogance and cockiness are insecurity pretending to be confident. So accept and deal with your insecurities. It's okay to have them.

Arrogance is when she finds you ugly.

Confidence is when she finds you hot.

^ sure, if your self esteem is dependent on external validation. I got the impression that Retrogamer was asking about more than the surface level appearances though.

It's not about validation; it's about bias.

^What I'm suggesting is thinking for himself/not being a victim of the ego, and your suggestion is believing what he can infer from people's reactions? Why base your self image on another persons bias?

Regardlesss what he thinks of his self image, but when it comes to dating, it is the other person's perception (a girl in OP's
case) of his image that it counts.

I'm sure life has taught you that lesson, it is anecdotal though.
I don't know FOB, I think i would rather be alone indefinitely than sell out on myself, but life has taught me that lesson.
Different perspectives.

Actually this is one of my concerns.

When I try to get out of self-loathing, I try to think I'm a really cool guy but then it feels like arrogance, like I'm deliberately ignoring my shortcomings. Then it's back to self-loathing.

It is hard to find that balance, but in my experience it's best to acknowledge the shortcomings. Ignoring them leads to problems, and we all have shortcomings, anyway. I'm not always fair to others and I don't always give them a chance, for example. By reminding myself of that I can have better interactions with people. If I ignore this shortcoming, I'm more likely to be rude, and the consequences of that will lead to self-loathing.

As long as you think of yourself as someone you'd be interested in hanging out with, but accept that not all others will agree, then it's not arrogance. And you'll be happy. After all, we don't think all other people are cool.

Others will probably like seeing you accept and cope with your insecurities, too. They will see it as a sign that you will accept theirs.

You could be an accomplished, cool person or whatever. What the heck is wrong with that?

But don't be an a**hole about it.

Unfortunately, I think Boo is right. Confidence indeed is the interpretation by somebody that likes you and arrogance is the interpretation by somebody that doesn't. If somebody likes you and considers you hot, you can get away with all kinds of things including arrogance, rudeness and sexual comments, but if you are not hot, you will be considered a creep that is sexually harassing them.

You worded it better than I did.