Any other guys tired of the word "Confident"?

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This word makes me soo angry I can't think straight.. people tell me to be confident and the women will come. My only question is how in the world is a guy like me supposed to be confident? I'm a 22 year old virgin who has probably been rejected by atleast 500 women. Regardless of what people will try to tell you rejection hurts.. it hurts really bad and will eventually take a devastating tole on one's self esteem. Sometimes I wonder if these people preaching "Confidence" even live in reality. Do they really think confidence matters anyways? I used to be more confident but tons of rejection has worn it out of existence. But my point is confidence didn't help me back then so why would it help me now? Do any other guys around here get tired of the confidence BS?

I can tell you that acting confident does help. I can also tell you that it's very hard, if not downright impossible, to be confident if you just don't think you will be successful. I've been told time and again to show confidence and what I ended up doing is faking it. Just acting like I did have confidence even though I was absolutely sure inside that I would fail. It doesn't guarantee success but it does make you come across better. I've had to fake a lot of stuff like that in life, and if you fake it long enough it eventually becomes real.

That's the only advice I've got about that topic, and while it isn't much, I hope it can help.

Fake it till you make it.

You shouldn't fake confidence exclusively to get laid, though—as this will make rejections hurt even more. Fake confidence as much as possible and use it to get by in social situations, in job interviews and everywhere it's required. Then, one day, you'll actually be confident without faking anything.

Learn to read body,anguage (mirroring is a cheap, but efficient way) and get really good at something that impresses people. This will boost your confidence and allow you to have fun at the same time.

Lastly, one more thing: Never tell a girl you're a virgin until after you had sex. MTV and reality shows put virgins in the pariah caste.

Yes, I'm very tired of it, and I concur with everything you've said here.

If you spend your damn near impossible to foster confidence in yourself.

There's also the catch-22 of, if you're of a low social standing/unattractive/have no money or whatever, even a little bit of confidence comes off as narcissism. I faced that a lot when I was younger. I was fairly confident but had a self-deprecating side. Still got told I was a narcissist. So I basically stopepd caring about being confident.

Fast forward to now and I get "oh you're so cool and manly and a great person, but I can't date you because you don't look good or make enough money or have enough friends." Basically drove the last nails straight into the coffin lol.

I've found the only way to be confident is to base your confidence on actual achievements in other realms not social or romantic. You can fake it, but I don't feel good doing it so I don't.

Or more simple, you can just take some testosterone boosting stuff. Bam, instant confidence. However, confidence doesn't equal reality. I find when I'm more confident I'll be even more socially awkward and say more ridiculous things. Basically excessive confidence turns me into like Frank Yang (youtube him.)

I killed my confidence when I attempted suicide when I was 14. I'm still working on building it back.

To explain why my confidence is lacking is that I have never had the clarity, or sureity of action as I did when I attempted suicide. Now, 18 years later, everything gets measured against how confident I was at that moment that I could self-terminate and followed through on it. I doubt everything now because I just don't have the same drive, or the same level of confidence as I did at that one moment in time. My past self was an idiot and thank god I failed at failing, but man did I screw myself up.

Unfortunately its not really about the feeling of confidence. Its about displaying it. Theater.

You can break this 'display' it into its component elements: (feel free to add your own)

Volume- A solid, strong voice (higher volume than normal but not too high) is perceived as confident. Solid means without wavering pronunciation or breaks in speech ( 'like', 'umm', 1 second gap as you think what to say next, etc).

Eye contact - Maintain eye contact = display of confidence. It is also used to display dominance... 'staring' down someone effect.

Body language/posture - Straight back and shoulders (not slumped shoulders or arched back), do not excessively move hands or feet as you talk (too much hand movement = nervous display. .. if you use hands as part of communication limit hand movement to one movement per 10 seconds or so..that displays confidence).

Choice of words/Language - Avoid using jargon, vulgarities or small comments. The more formal your speech and the less 'pointless' stuff you say (aka small comments) will increase your projection of confidence. common sense says this is because someone that makes small comments here and there and that uses 'low' English is not sure of himself or is trying to 'fit in'.

A great example is when you are introduced to someone for the first time.

If your voice when you say 'Nice to meet you' is too soft and wavering that is picked up as insecurity. If your handshake is weak it is picked up as insecurity. If you do both previous things while your back is not straight and shoulders are slumped you give the impression of being tired, insecure. If you follow the 'nice to meet you' with sentences that use lots of 'ummm' and 'like' that takes away a lot from you as you get categorized into the 'another one of these people that do this' ... you put yourself into the equivalent of a woman's friend zone rather than standing out (even if minimally).

Voice and eye contact tend to be the big ones though. those are the ones that need to be maintained through the entire conversation and maintained in every social interaction. They are also the hardest (for me at least) to do.

Once you get those worked out you can get into more external factors like clothing/fashion and the likes.

Thinking about all that crap would just make me less confident. I'm not a pushover but I'm just not a verbally spontaneous person due to my autism and the way my brain functions. I have to think before I speak and it takes me a second or two to precess someone else's words, meaning I don't respond instantly, might say "ummm" at times, or have temporary silences. I can't magically turn myself into a booming "confident"-sounding chatterbox and the notion that I would have to turn into that to please someone is insulting. I find those types of men irritating as hell so I'd hope there are women out there who are the same as me.

Its not about being verbally spontaneous. Think of it more as a step by step thing. Voice volume and eye contact come first.

If you sound (volume wise) confident (without a wavering voice) the temporary silences become part of the performance. It is perceived as confidence (unless you overdo the pauses a lot). Ummms is something even NTs have problems removing from the vocabulary.. just as it is to stop using the word 'like' a lot.

You don't have to be a chatterbox either. I've found the less I say the better it goes.

Its not easy and I've not mastered it (not even close) but I have found out people react very differently when I pull off the voice tone and eye contact parts. I don't do the 'umm' maybe because english is my 2nd language and I was taught never to do it as I learned but I do notice it a lot when people talk...and yes, it does 'switch' the perception of the person from 'hey he knows what he's talking about' to ' oh an ummm that means he's not very sure and is trying to remember or think about it to decide what to say'.

Its a performance and it does not come naturally. Its stressful to do but once you get in a habit of doing it, it gets easier.

Personally I try to channel capt. picard from TNG star trek when I talk... may sound silly but it works.

Ok, that's officially what I'm doing from now on; in all seriousness.

Just don't do the accent.

Anothing thing I hate about confidence is when I get manic and then I get confident. And the mania decides to turn tail and run, and the floor drops out from under me on what confidence I was able to maintain at the moment.

I wish I could. : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F02rzmW_HOo#t=2m38s

I'd just prefer people respect that I am more intelligent than most people by listening to what I have to say rather than judging me because I stammer a little and struggle to find the right words at times. Sometimes it's a memory recall problem. I really can't help the fact that I'm verbally dyslexic at times and it pisses me off that people would think I'm dumb or lack confidence based on superficial crap like that. f**k people who can't deal with it. They're not the kind of people I want anyways. I'm not going to memorize lines to say like a script just so I can appear more confident. I doubt that would work anyways.

Yea, I can get more "confident" appearing when I get pissed off but I don't think most people want to see that.

Simple. What are you not confident about? Fix it. If you think you're overweight, then lose some and put on some muscle. If you think you're not good looking, then find a style that complements your features (After all, Vincent Cassel is considered to be a sex symbol, so anyone can do it). If you think you're socially incompetent, then practice, man. Fix yourself, make yourself proud, and confidence will come.

Four things about projecting confidence:
1. Posture. Shoulders back, stand tall, chin up.

2. Voice. Dantac had it right. Keep a steady voice, smile while you talk (It makes a big difference), and keep it from wavering. Speak in your natural voice, even if you think it's ugly, but talk from the throat, not the nose. Practice with a voice recorder for a while. Hearing it played back helps a lot and let's you hear as other people would.

3. Eye contact. If you look everywhere but their eyes, then they'll wonder about you. It seems servile. Maintain eye contact for three or four seconds, then look off to the side for a second or two, and come back. More than that is creepy, less is weak. And always maintain eye contact with the person who is talking to you, not the person you're interested in, if you're in a group, but check her out on occasion to show interest.

4. Courtesy. Give up your seat on the bus, pull out the lady's chair, run ahead to get the door for her, don't swear, don't use slang, maintain table manners. Big winner here.

Lastly, there's a couple of flipsides to this. Do not idealize women. Do. Not. If you think of a woman as some sort of goddess, as better than, then you will falter. They are human, no more, no less. Ask them about their interests, I guarantee it will be something like anime or sports or movies. Talk to them normally, get to know them a bit, and at the end of the conversation, ask if they want to get together sometime. You're looking for someone you like and who like you, not a magical hole that makes you a man once you've been inside of it.

I used to think like that. Problem was, the appearance of lack of confidence (even if you were confident) is what NT's pick up and while they do not judge you completely on it, it does heavily influence their perception of you. Ergo, they listen more to how things are said rather than what is said while we listen more to what is said rather than how its said.

Like I mentioned before, its not easy to do but at the very least eye contact and tone of voice makes a huge, huge difference in how you are perceived. Projecting confidence doesn't have to be about being firm in your speech or becoming a commanding ass... you can sound confident telling a joke or being nice too. Perception is everything in the NT social world and the reality of it is, you either play along with it or get left out. No other way around it.