wdis3, I can feel you and wanted to give you some help. Here is a little-known secret...being confident starts with acting confident. You see, improving your self-image works in a cycle. You can begin by simply acting more confident and the rest will fall into place.
Here is a very interesting article by a woman on male confidence, the author is unknown, but I think you will find it a good read.
What Do Women Really Want?
Attention Men!
I am now going to tell you something really important about what women want. Specifically, what they want in a man. Be advised that I will be dealing with a monumental but accurate generalization. It's not meant to apply to every female who ever lived. I bow to the variability within and between the sexes. Nonetheless, I think I am on fairly safe ground here. My assertion has the undeniable thud of the obvious.
What women want from men is confidence. Not arrogance, not dominance, not one-upsmanship, not bravado, not macho heroics. Women just love truly confident men.
Confidence is an attitude thing. In particular, male confidence frequently manifests as an I-can-handle-it attitude. This does not mean that feelings are denied. It doesn't imply an absence of doubt, fear, or vulnerability. A delusion of total self sufficiency is not required.
Confidence simply says: "I can deal with it . . . somehow . . ." This attitude doesn't even have to be constant, just generally present in the face of most life challenges.
For hundreds of thousands of years of human development, a confident attitude was much easier for men to gain and display than it is now. There was hardly any choice. Until recently, the demands of physical survival were the primary issue in pair-bonding and confidence-building roles directly related to survival were far more apparent. Everyone could see the skilled hunter, the dedicated farmer and stockman, the courageous protector, the skilled artisan, the accomplished leader, the sage teacher, the men who didn't give up in the face of threatening set-backs. Why hell! There have been times when a women wouldn't even consider a man who couldn't claim to be a good carpenter or a competent dirt mover. These roles, decreed by harsher realities of life than most of us now experience, were obvious advertisements for male virtue.
Unfortunately, the signs indicative of genuine masculine confidence are confusing today and gender roles are a chaotic mess. The external trappings of confidence have been confused with the poor substitute of consumer status symbols. But women instinctually look for clues to a man's level of confidence . . . and test it to the limit . . . but not in the old-fashioned way.
Now for the good news. Since confidence is primarily an attitude toward meeting challenges of all kinds, and there's no shortage of challenges in the world, the essential attitude can still be cultivated and demonstrated. Willingness to face important struggles is still the ultimate key to a woman's respect.
In contemporary times, a man may express this dynamic in many conventional ways. He can show his integrity through competence in his work, education, sports, hobbies, child rearing, or doing home improvements. Actually, we can include here any thing which involves mastering a new learning curve and overcoming ego uncertainties.
Now, if a man really wants to do some crash confidence building, he can try the old-fashioned approach. He can expose himself to bigger risks: jump out of a few airplanes, compete at martial arts, lift
weights, climb sheer cliffs with only the strength of his fingertips for security, take on dangerous political controversies, start an unusual new business with more enthusiasm than capital, confront provocative teenagers, or spend days in the wilderness with only his tom-tom for company. It's not the specific activity that matters, what matters is what goes on in the man's head that makes him feel masterful.
Or . . . a man can cut to the bottom line, avoid physically and financially dangerous experiences, and go for the really big risk, the ultimate emotional challenge. He can work directly at becoming more confident with women themselves. That's riskier than cliff climbing, anyway! Although a woman likes to believe a man is willing to deal with a lot of things, what really counts is that he is able to deal with her. A healthy, mature woman resists impassioned commitment to a man who is afraid of her sexuality, her intelligence, or her emotions.
Gentlemen, the Everest you need to climb isn't a mountain, it's a strong female. This means gaining confidence and empathy in approaching and relating to women on many levels, in the face of rejections real or imagined. And since this is the riskiest venture of all, the pay-off is, appropriately, the biggest.
I feel far to pissed of and unhappy to do any.
