Confidence is not competence.

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I like humble, awkward, insecure men too.
I think the whole thing about confidence is overblown.

I feel like too many people get caught up in the cliché caricature of "confidence" portrayed in movies and TV, the person that struts around like they own they place (and maybe they do), who knows they can't fail, and can do anything and everything, and everyone knows it just by looking at their confident vibe, to the point of cockiness and arrogance. "Acting confident" is not the same thing as "having confidence". People who "act" confident usually do so cos they don't know what confidence actually looks or feels like - so they engage in performative swagger instead.

Confidence can be as simple as a person who's humble, awkward, and insecure - but doesn't let that stop them from trying their humble awkward insecure best anyways, and feeling ok regardless of the result. Awkwardness humility insecurity doubt failure etc, these are not mutually exclusive with confidence.

Best example:

He doesn't come out bragging about how great he is, or puffing himself up. He doesn't act like he's the coolest homie ever. He's not posing and posturing or acting "smooth". He's awkward, shuffling, withdrawn, kinda mumbling - doesn't talk about what a great singer he is, just says he wants to be one, says this chance means everything to him. And it was not a very good performance. But he still went there, did that, and put his all into it anyways. When Simon said he should leave, he didn't get mad or defensive, he was trying to help by awkwardly looking for the mic shroud. Walks off stage, still a good sport. It didn't ruin his day, didn't ruin his life, he didn't run off stage crying that he'll never sing again or what a failure he is. Prolly go back home and keep scream-rapping to his pals, and at least he fckin tried.



Awkwardness and insecurity are far less charming when lacking even some small shred of confidence - that's when you get people who constantly nag you for validation, don't trust you because their insecurity convinces them that you'll always be looking for or tempted by "something better", never believe you cos they're convinced you're just being nice, etc. The people you can't criticize, or say "no" to, without them losing their minds at you. Their "confidence" relies entirely on you keeping their ego afloat.

Needy and insecure is what you get when you rely on successes or external validation to be the source of your "confidence". Validation becomes your drug of choice, as without it, you revert back to "nothing", like a pumpkin at midnight.

^^ The guy in the video is not an example of confidence; he is an example of a troll.
No way in hell he would really believe himself as a potential singer; if he really does then that an even bigger mental problem.

Please guys, don’t be “confident” like this idiot troll.

What about cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants?

Is he over-confident with the whole "I'm ready!! !" thing?

I never was a big fan of shows like American Idol because I don’t like cringey auditions. I’m more about honing skills through hard work and dedication before performing in front of other people. I enjoyed playing Moonlight Sonata at a piano recital. I wouldn’t have enjoyed banging a bunch of random keys or just playing badly, and I don’t think my audience would’ve either.

People need to have confidence to work on social skills or whatever else rather than just give up, but confidence with poor social skills could make people uncomfortable, sort of like bad singing can, not that anyone is suggesting that people shouldn’t work on social/communication skills. I just think it’s hard to make comparisons between dissimilar skill sets.

I feel like the definition of confidence is conflated to success-rates here, but with the social meaning, the definition is closer to security. Feeling secure enough about yourself that if someone rejects you, you still know that you don't need them & don't have to care what they think.

I know a big issue for us is rejection sensitivity, but ESPECIALLY with dating, there's nothing scarier than someone who blows up or gets rude after being rejected. In dating, it feels like a manipulation/scare tactic, like the person who had to decline owed the person something or did something wrong/should feel guilty for not reciprocating.

The "fake it til you make it" really refers to handling feelings surrounding rejection. But the only way to gain the true "competence" for confidence is to practice getting rejected. Try shifting perspective. Have you ever had to reject someone? How did it go? Try to picture someone flirting with you when you really don't want them to, & now you have to tell them that you're not interested. Now picture them being mad at you for being honest. That would probably would make you want to avoid them, right? Now imagine if they were fine with you not being interested, still polite and moved on. You'd probably feel a bit better around them anyway, even if they tried to flirt with you. And they'd seem "confident". The key to confidence is all about how you visibly respond to rejection.

The "faking it" is pretending like you're okay with rejection, like it didn't take a ton of courage/getting your hopes up to try in the first place, and then stuffing that rejection down, telling yourself that it doesn't matter in the long run, and trying again with someone else anyway, despite the pain. That's how you actually *gain* real confidence, because you learn it really doesn't matter. Also helps to try and pinpoint your own behavior patterns/responses, to see what behaviors garner better/worse responses from potential dates, and then figure out what to do differently each time. Think of it like an experiment. And if you can't tell if things are going well, try asking directly "is this working for you?"<- a confident thing to ask, because it risks rejection, and especially confident if the answer is "no" & you can still say "for sure, i appreciate the honesty" and move on.

You'll never gain the competence if you give up & don't practice.

Best of luck friend.

One gains confidence by being competant in other relationships.
I took up golf to gain confidence in making casual relationships.
Competence is being a pleasant partner in a foursome.
Being really good is being able to elevate how well your partners play when you are with them!
Being a bad golfing partner is dragging everyone down with poor play.

For those on the spectrum, talking with cashiers and people who take your order at sit down restaurants can be a challenge. Can you handle thirty seconds of small talk?

I'm intrigued that most of the replies were debating about what confidence is.

The kettle word that piqued my interest was competence.

There's this incredibly incompetent dude in my life who has a crush on me. He just seems useless in all aspects of life, not just social skills. I look at him and think "incompetent".

No woman wants a man that she needs to do everything for. He needs.some skills in something at least.