Nice Guys suck...

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^^ are you fully confident Jainaday?

What does that mean?

Is anyone "fully confident?"

I think I'm very confident; I do things that scare other people, often, and things that scare me, regularly, and I don't think it's just out of stupidity. . . .(though at times I wonder). . . but, though it's something I'm attracted to, it doesn't seem to be something that's particularly attractive to guys- except, for the most part, the sort of guys who are lacking confidence themselves and want to borrow somehow.

There have been just enough exceptions to this. . . that is, one. . . to give me hope for the future.

I believe I have as much confidence as reason permits; that's what I'm shooting for, anyway.

I don't wish to demean or fault those with less confidence. . . It's not like one can just flip a switch and change something so essential to who they are, and it's not like people ask for the experiences that leave them stripped of confidence in the first place. I've spent a lot of time chasing down and fighting what I'm afraid of to build mine. It's a long, difficult, painful process; worth it, I think. I recommend it highly.

Now that I've rambled a bit, why do you ask?

I think the only thing that's working for me is just railing on things internally trying to harden myself up. I've been at it for years but my nervous system is pretty resilliant to it. Even at 27 almost 28 and more adorable than masculine its going to take a lot of work for that to consistently translate outwardly. As for mannerisms, this is also particularly hard in my case - its more like just having some serious neurological problems that keep me looking behaviorally kinda frail. Its really almost like a lack of certain brain chemicals that I need to really feel as diesel as I'd like, my mind craves that almost dysphoric-edged macho state while my body wishes I'd just be the guy I look like and platy WOW or go read a book.

Being that's the case and that I've had years of experience with that, its also incredibly hard to look women in the eye unless I've been formally introduced to them, have a reason to be talking them, or just in general feel like I have the go-ahead to talk to em without getting shot at for alterior motives. Who I am doesn't really mean jack unless I can project it, otherwise I could be attracting all the wrong women for the wrong reasons and repelling the right ones for who I am maybe indefinitely. This is the funny thing about being high functioning though, especially when you've adapted a rather NT take on self - you really don't catch breaks and I think its just because people don't see the reason. I know I've pissed away so many opportunities with lots of attractive women who went as far as a woman reasonable can go (looking, flirting, and nonverbally gesturing like she wants me to talk), I know I can't beat myself up over those losses though just because back then my anxiety was so bad and so physical that I was really stuck - nothing could have changed overnight no matter what I thought of myself (and for years of amping up my dignity and seeing myself just like everyone else for the most part - the physical's very stubborn and very difficult to change).

So now I think all I can really say is I'll do the best to control whatever I can of myself from here on out. I've been saying it and doing it for years, still hasn't improved things enough but I think its that fight that keeps me from really losing myself to this condition and the related depression of it. On the other hand, completely other than gestalt, I know I have a lot of emotional issues with close contact and intimacy that I need to work out - they aren't specifically my fault but then again that's the way I address the past, I still will do everything in the now and future to iron those things out. No, I don't NEED a woman in my life but what I DO need is a consistent mental set of self ready for when I do actually meet someone who I do like and would want in my life - I don't want to realize that my wiring and all of its loops are going to bust the situation up and have to wonder if I'll ever have another shot at anyone similar or how many more years I'd have to wait. Any changes I make to myself I'm really just making to the exterior and everything that seems to really fly in the face of who I am or at least perceive myself to be deep down; as complicated, pain staking, or arduous as that may be I won't give up - I may need certain time periods in my life to just step away from it and recharge but still I know letting myself go would be the worst thing, even without gain the object of doing everything you can for yourself is at least feeling good with or without payoff and palliating the rest of your existence the right way.

and no, I wouldn't call myself a 'nice guy', but I understand the conflict and how so much of this really is genetic - rote social skills and positive attitudes just don't hack it on their own, it takes presence as well as your ability to show your verile side adequately.

Because you give lectures as someone who has too much self-confidence and since you confirmed it now I would ask you another question .

I understand what you mean in separating social confidence from confidence , I am confident with my skills , with my work , with computers , with what i am doing ...but i am not social confident , when it comes to social even my confidence is low and when it comes to women my 'social confidence' is zero , I don't know how to behave , how to read signs or how to send signs , I dunno how to make eye contacts , i dunno how to go with conversations all during the event , looking without feeling awkward ....etc

but this is 'love and dating' section ...so when we talk about confidence here then we really mean the other kind of confidence :the social confidence , because when it comes to dating it's the social confidence that counts more than the other kind of confidence and it 's the 'social confidence ' that would be visible in a date ...

My other question is : do you have social confidence miss?

*laughing*

before I put my foot in it again, Why is this related to the other question?

Ok, foot time.

Yes, I think so.

I'm willing to take social risks; I believe in my chances of success. I don't always succeed, but I am willing to take the losses in cases where I don't.

Hence, being such a loud mouth. (on the bright side, I'm more than happy to engage with other loud mouths. . . it's one of my favorite things. )


It increases my chances of social success that I've studied and analyzed social situations a lot, but I think the real confidence comes from having taken risks until I experienced success. (though the two obviously play off of one another. . . )

And another question for you, petit; what defines too much confidence, other than the tone of one's lectures?

I think I give "lectures" based off of things I have experienced; therefore, my confidence in them, as my point of view, is justified. Of course I could always be wrong, but until I experience something that leads me to that conclusion, there's not much reason to revise. . . . So am I just being too condecending in my choice of language, or are you defining me as "too confident" by some other criteria?

When an Aspe become too confident they become bighead not jerks.

People don't tend to like "know-it-alls" but they do tend to love confidence. And yeah, Jaina, it doesn't have to be social confidence in particular, at least for me, that a woman has, but even just being confident of what she's spending her time doing at the present moment, and confidence about her own abilities that I find extremely attractive.
Hummm, as far as eugenics literature. The main problem with it is that we're trying to act as proxies for Natural selection. Natural selection HAS selected for genes that code for Autism Spectrum Disorders to occupy a substantial (from the perspective of population genetics) fraction of the human population. Most eugenecists want to get rid of such "mistakes" of selection, mental "abnormalities" being a prime area that popular eugenecists such as Hitler and Galton were concerned with. Where the hell do you think Hitler got his ideas from, they were from books written by shoddy American thinkers. It's not that eugenics is inefficient but more that Natural selection is ONLY effective, not always efficient, try to keep that distinction in mind here. The idea of eugenics implies that evolution promotes progress in nature, and that idea is a fallacy as Van Valen's Law shows. I'll have to think of what the best overall book or books about eugenics and its lack of an actual scientific basis are. I'll get back to you. It's just silly to even think someone autistic would think eugenics was useful. Hitler and Stalin and Mao would've loved to work each one of us to death!
Good example: the Ashkenazy jews have higher than average IQs- but their experiment in eugenics came with a price: certain fat metabolizing disorders that cause 40 year olds to die of massive heartattacks and much higher than average population rates of breast cancers in their women. Another example: malarial resistance. You know that story, most carrying a certain gene are immune to malaria, and others though that have the "wrong" combination die a horribly painful death from sickle-cell anemia...
As a working biologist, a specialist in evolutionary theory in fact, I fail to see the benefit of trying to select out every trait or behavior that's fashionably "wrong" or "bad" for society. Look at who thinks Autism is a disease for example...

Generic similarity is always going to be a problem. This can be race problem as well as a distant and close relational problem.

If I ever have any children, this is going to a consideration. If I have kids with black girl with Aspergers or an intellectual my age, the chances of having a child with complication increase.

If I have kids with a white, beautiful, young Chav, our polar opposites will cancel each other out and the child will most likely be normal intellectually and socially.

Life is complicated if you have Aspergers.

It's only your lecturer 's tone that sounds socially confident , I know nothing else about you so I can judge .

Are you really autistic or aspie btw ?

I thought Hitler got his ideas from Nietzsche.

I agree that genetic variety is important for survival, but there are also advantages to similarities in a group. A great philosopher named Immanuel Kant talked about "abstraction being made from the individual differences of rational beings" in a kingdom of ends. He also said that we should "act only on the maxim that can become through our will a universal law of conduct," or, put simply, "act only in a way that you can will others to act." This idea of morality based on duty would be much easier to accept if there were fewer differences between us.

I'm not opposed to genetic variety, I'm just showing you another perspective.

I fit 60, 65, 78, and 178, it seems.

I am not sure I like 65 though: too open to interpretation. The action figures and toys thing seems obvious but someone could view a person with an interest in video games or fantasy football as someone who still enjoys playing make believe and the like. I know people often correlate my interest in roleplaying games to that very thing.

I dunno, seems like trying to find a guy or girl using this list might be falling into that hunt for the 'perfect mate' buisness that never works.

And yet, all I hear from women is, "Why can't I just find a nice guy?" They never say, "Why can't I just find a bastard?"
Of course, men have the same self-delusions about wanting a nice girl. What people really mean is that they want someone nice by precisely their own little definition of nice, i.e. perpetually giving and doing things for you.


We're in Roman times, my friend. We never graduated.

Last edited by Ragtime on 15 Aug 2007, 11:40 am, edited 1 time in total.

Yes, but why do you choose to call me too confident?



Hell if I know.

There are a couple of diagnosed people in my family; when my little brother was getting his diagnosis, I was there, and I was like, "you aren't saying I'm autistic, and I have. . . (basically every symptom, except I shower and stopped physically fighting my classmates when I was nine) also."

Of course, the shrink took this to mean I had an emotional resistance to the idea of autism in the family; he didn't even throw out the possibility that I was Aspie too.

If I am, it's pretty well covered by the fact that I spent several years fascinated by social analysis. I read everything Judith Martin (Miss Manners) had written at the time, relationship books (many of which made little sense to me, as they usually don't describe how I think, feel, and respond), older behavior guides. . . spent a lot of time watching people and trying to figure things out. . . My attempts to learn the detailed nonverbal stuff were less easy; I started studying fashion from a historical/formal standpoint- didn't know where else to start- and it takes a lot to get from there to "is this the right thing to wear to this event" in real life. I then studied dance and Bartenief movement analysis, which includes (my favorite part) a freakishly detailed analysis of body language and it's phychological implications.

So now, it's great, I even have NT friends who ask me for help with social analysis regularly. . . the only catch is, I often hate interacting with people, especially new people, with whom I have to use all that stuff. It's pretty funny. I choose to have a social life anyway because it helps with the depression (no new people eventually means few or no close friends either), but social interaction is. . . yeah. A little to much means I want to hide under a rock, rock back and forth, and cry.

One of the reasons I love WP- and online in general- is because I can hear and be heard without dealing with all the crap. . . and I can always just turn my computer off.


So you tell me. . . am I autistic or aspie?

Maybe from Nietzsche's sister. I'm pretty sure Nietzsche hated Nazis.

I'm not sure whether you're autistic, but you definitely sound very intelligent. I see that you're a student. I'm curious, what's your major? Mine is mathematics.

Last edited by MikeH106 on 15 Aug 2007, 12:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.