Confidence: it’s all or nothing

“Confidence is a trait so hard to define.  So few of us have as much as we would like, and those who we think have an abundance seldom have the perceived amount.  Forever we are aspiring to gain compliments and attention, but our short term memory forces us to continuously search for this validation of our worth to the world.  Confidence takes years to build up, but in one drastic moment we can fall off the ladder and lose it all.”

                 

When women are asked what their most desirable trait in a man must be, the vast majority of them will say it is confidence.  I have known very confident men, along with extremely unconfident men.  I’ve seen some of my closest friends go from zero to absolute over the years in their confidence levels, alongside those who have gone through the polar inverse of this cycle.

Confidence isn’t just one trait that is brought to a man’s life.  For example, a high level of charisma heightens his confidence.  Personality, or knowledge that he has it, brings about confidence.  A man’s good looks, when he sees a wide portfolio of women looking at him with differing emotions, can be the highest compliment to his confidence.  And money, although only a material object at the end of the day, will also aid a man’s confidence - albeit to paper over the cracks of his more organic deficiencies.  Confidence is usually associated with high value men, but not always.  Bad boys have the trump card when it comes to confidence, as naïve, and some intelligent, women sniff it like a scent of fine cologne.  Some nice guys have confidence, but not many have it to a greater extreme.  If they possessed more of it, they wouldn’t need to act with women in the way they do.

So how does confidence come about, and how can it be lost?  What factors contribute to a man portraying the most important commodity he needs to attract and acquire women of all kinds?  Can it be faked, learnt or built on, or is it simply something to be born with?

Like most elements in sexual attraction, men usually have a small idea as to what attracts a woman, and what turns them away.  But it usually ends there.  They don’t take the time to actually study or understand what women first find attractive, and they rarely ask questions to the opposite sex that would clearly assist their success rates.  Although many women say one thing and act another way within their own emotional life, they are strangely very honest and objective in informing a guy to the areas that attract them.  At least this appears the case when it doesn’t implicate on them directly.  I’ve asked many women this question, and the overwhelming majority response comes in the form of confidence.  A man can never have enough confidence when utilized in the corrective way.  The danger is always when he oversteps the mark and it turns to a level of arrogance.  When this optimum threshold is passed, the confidence he has built up becomes counter-productive. 

The first time I truly understood it was confidence that turned women on more than anything else was when I started to go out with a few mates from the gym.  Two of them were typical beta males - short in confidence, stature or presence.  However, one of them was the typical alpha male.  He was decent looking, but by his own admission he wasn’t as visually appealing as me - both in facial features and bodily profile.  He just didn’t give a care about what women thought of him, and just as importantly, how they would react when he approached them.  Rejection wasn’t even a concern to him, and his carefree attitude was there for all to see.  I admired his lack of consideration to the outcome dependence of his interactions with the opposite sex.  I recall one night when we met one particular woman who attended the same gym.  She actually was more attracted to me (at least that’s the way it seemed), as whilst she acknowledged my friend, she knew about his previous history with other women.  That said, I always sensed her attraction towards him too, but it was like she was forcing herself not to like him.  Looking back, part of her attraction towards me was probably down to my lack of interest in her. The push-pull scenario, in terms of how women push towards a man when he is apathetic, comes to mind here.

A couple of weeks later I became quite good friends with this woman.  She had a fiancé, so I kind of hid behind the fact I wasn’t someone who desired to get in between the two of them.  Looking back, I should have been as honest as I would be today, but these are the weakly spoken words to a women you don’t find attractive.  Anyway, we talked for hours about Leon, me, her impending wedding and women in general.  The one good thing that stood out in what she said more than anything was - “I think women find you well gorgeous, but maybe you need to show more confidence like him.”

That comment stood out like a sore thumb to me.  I’d always known that physical attractiveness, money and personality were the fundamental desires that women find attractive in men, but this now took it to a new thought process.  Sure, confidence is an overlap of personality, but it is more a value component of charisma.  For example, the majority of beta males have a good standard of personality - easy to talk to, good listeners, intellectual, intelligent and knowledgeable - but very few of them possess a high degree of confidence.  They simply do not illustrate it to the outside world in a convincing manner.  Confidence is more to do with body language, and it comes across as a non-verbal component that shines like a light.  And remember, the majority of female visceral assessment of men is in non-verbal capacities.

In addition to all this, my confident friend was involved with a long terms girlfriend as he concurrently slept with other women who attended the gym.  One of them was the receptionist – tall, blonde, reasonably pretty and with an excellent body.  She wasn’t the sharpest in intelligence or personality terms, but she would have been a grade above him in physical attractiveness rating.  I witnessed in person the texts she would send him in the early hours of the morning begging to meet up.  He had a collage of nude photographs she sent of herself on his phone.  After a while, she started seeing another guy from the gym who was at least as facially impressive as my friend, and his bodily profile was more eye catching.  The receptionist could still not refrain from sending my friend messages concurrent to the time she was in a relationship with her new boyfriend.  I didn’t truly grasp the concept of her compulsions to Leon when she had and objectively better looking male mate, but in retrospect it is ever the obvious.  In a nutshell, she was drawn to his bad boy reputation, and the confidence that is naturally reflected off this type of character.

So what kind of man has confidence, how does he acquire it, and what restricts him from ever becoming more confident than he already is?

Bad boys

Bad boys are the picture of confidence.  They walk around like they don’t care about what the world thinks of them, let alone women they may feel sexually attracted to.  A huge proportion of confidence derives from control.  If a man feels in control of a situation, his confidence rubs off on this.  Nothing epitomizes control more than when a man is with a woman.  If he feels in control, and he isn’t afraid of what she says, how she feels, or losing her due is his knowledge  that another woman is around the corner, he is ultimately confident when I her presence.  He senses it is actually her who feels vulnerable to lose him.  A bad boy’s internal confidence isn’t measured in how he knows he looks, as not all of them are in the upper range of male physical attractiveness.  His confidence is all about his comfort in the situation, his knowledge that many women desire him, and his vision of always having options.

What restricts him from taking his confidence to the next level?  Well, very little in his prime bad boy days.  Such is his popularity and awareness women crave for men like him, the demand of hunters (women) supersedes the supply of men of his nature.  Of course, even these men are susceptible to a woman who matches his mentality.  If he met a beautiful, intelligent and successful woman, and someone who is different to all his former cute but naïve girls, this kind of woman can knock him down a peg or two and he can start to act more in a beta manner.  This is where he has to go back to his original way, and recall why she found him attractive in the first place.  It wasn’t money, personality or looks that struck her attention over the other men.  It was his confidence, aura, and the fact he wasn’t the usual wealthier but boring kind of beta male she had met a dozen times in the same day.

Nice guys

If bad boys are the placard of confidence, then nice guys are the representation of trying to show confidence rather than it flowing through their natural veins.  But let’s start with the positive - he does have some confidence.

When a nice guy is dating a woman on his similar physical attractiveness level, his confidence and control is fairly high.  He knows she isn’t the kind of woman who has hoards of men chasing her therefore he can act relatively calm.  The problems start when he meets a more physically attractive woman – a dynamic common due to the higher number of physically attractive women below the age of thirty, in comparison to men.  What many average looking beta males don’t comprehend is they actually have more leeway with beautiful women than a good looking guy.  Women do not have their guard up anywhere near as much with a man less physically attractive, and it is an open book for him when he approaches her.  If he could show confidence, she wouldn’t be looking at the better looking man standing yards away.  She would be transfixed in his charisma and be attached to the recognition of her high comfort and value level (high, because she is more physically attractive than him).  This is where he needs to treat her in the same way as his previous average looking girlfriends.

However, he over compliments her (which she likes, but not in a visceral receptive way), he shows her too much value, and he wears a t-shirt that may as well metaphorically spell his out his supplication.  She grasps in seconds that she is the most attractive woman he has spoken to in the last year, and whilst there is a short term appreciation of this, deep down she is asking questions to whether any other women would even give him second look.  His beta ways also have jealousy painted across his face, and once she starts talking to another guy, does he give her space and show a level of apathy?  No, he clings on like a bad smell.  He’ll get rejected in a matter of minutes, and nice guys do not take rejection well at all.  His confidence is shattered.

High value men

On the face of it, a high value man should be the most confident of all criteria of men out there.  He is the best looking, he has the most balanced personality, he holds the highest charisma, he is in control of his life (such is his steady wealth and career), and he has a life he is happy with. 

When things are going well in his life this kind of man hits the confidence high - above the bad boys, and streets ahead of the nice guys.  When he is attracting women, he knows he’s a great catch, and women are attracted to him in a magnetized fashion.  Women in the world are pretty much his pick, providing he maintains a level that doesn’t border on arrogance.  Confidence is attained from just being the high value guy he is.  He doesn’t have to force it, as it is an amalgamation of innate blessings and developed work on his part.

Is confidence always in a high value man’s blood at all times?  Again, in the good times this is absolutely the case.  However, because of his projection of his own market value, he usually has high standards in the woman he looks for in physical and personable terms.  Immediately, if this is the case he is looking at the minority of women out there.  Now consider the women from this exclusive segment who will reject him for reasons such as insecurity, egoism, or trust issues, and there doesn’t appear like there are many women out there for him.  He isn’t afraid of rejection, as he holds onto his knowledge to the reasons it happens to him, and he can take it as a back-handed compliment.  However, even the highest calibre of value men can never honestly say they enjoy rejection.  Rejection brings thought: thought brings adjustments of interaction strategies: adjustments can bring about doubts.  As soon as doubts creep in, confidence can be dissipated.

Confidence is complex.  The hardest part about confidence is thinking you have more than you do, or not acknowledging that you are low in this decisive commodity.  I know guys who have natural good looks and charisma, yet strangely they are lacking in confidence.  On the other scale, I know friends who claim they ooze confidence when with women, but then they don’t pragmatically show evidence of this during scenarios in the real world.

Confidence is no different to all the emotions we go through in life.  One day we are up, the next day we are down.  Some guys can fake confidence, but in truth, most women will pick up on this front.  To add another spanner to the works, a few women are even afraid of a man with a level of swagger, such is the low degree of confidence they personally possess.  However, even in this generation, with women gaining more power through options in men, career progression and social network sycophancy, the majority of them are still natural followers in life.  They are still reactors rather than pro-actors.  They are fearful of rejection and in need of reassurance.  All this leads to a need to be with a man with confidence.  So the next time a man looks himself in the mirror, irrespective of what he sees, he should force himself to view the reflection of a confident man.  If a man doesn’t have confidence he will always be limited to how far he can go in life.  Confidence isn’t a little thing. It is almost everything.