Fuck Confidence: A rant about maleness

The BBQ Pit
1

Everybody tells me I need “confidence.” What the fuck is confidence? Does anybody really have it, or is it all just a vain put-up job?

If it’s that squeaky-clean ad-campaign soundtrack that says I Know Who I Am, Where I’m Going and What I Want, I don’t want that. If it’s that smooth, callow, subtly dick-swinging arrogance sometimes called “commanding” or “masterful,” I especially don’t want that. Fuck a lot of that kind of “confidence.” Just about every guy who ever screwed me over in my social or professional life was that kind of “confident”: the kind of mealy-mouthed, beady-eyed yuppie poser serial-achiever who might have had had a brain, a heart, and a soul, but also knew exactly when to turn each of them off and Do The Job.

What I want is a way to greater self-actualization without having to suckle at the fine-grained glossy black hand-tooled Italian-leather tit of “confidence.”

If I know my own mind, know what I like and what I don’t, yet still don’t know quite Who I Am, Where I’m Going or What I Want (hey! What am I? Perfect?!), and if I feel compelled every now and then to bitch out the whole game-playing fake-ass soul-eating world, can I get along without “confidence”? Is there, perhaps, a state about 15 degrees to the left of “confidence”? Something that walks a little humbler, steps on its own dick every so often and says “Damn!” a little too audibly when doing so, but is enough like “confidence” to get me by? What name does it answer to?

Someone over on some thread about dating said “Be confident: BE YOURSELF.” Well, I am reasonably sure “myself” is not “confident.” I have weaknesses and fears and all kinds of icky shit and you know what? They’re MINE! They’re ME! They’re not ALL of me – I have a helluva sense of wicked humor, a quick mind, creativity and charm. I also have a peculiar kind of self-respect which makes me loath to start acting out socially demanded archetypes, sometimes at great cost in terms of companionship. Sorry, gang, just being myself.

I have many masculine traits, but being Mister Manly Man of Manhood just makes me puke. I am, if anything, Mister Dougy Doug of Dougness. I am Doug first, last, and always.

So. Fuck “confidence.” I want something else. Any ideas?

2

I knew I’d find my long-lost twin some day.

3

((Othersider)) Hugs, bro’. Got to go to bed now - let’s see where the thread goes…

4

I thought this thread was about coINCIDENCE and MADness.

I’ll just bow out now then eh??

:smiley:

5

Queue ‘Why don’t nice guys get the chicks’ tangential rant in 5…4…3…2…

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I used to be one of those “nice guys” that Brutus is talking about. Then I found a woman that doesn’t live by the rules most women that said guys pursue, and I’ve been with her ever since. :smiley:

On the other hand, I have the same problem as our friend Doug here. Maybe it’s that I don’t like compromising my conscience, maybe I just don’t know enough people, maybe I can’t brown-nose like the best little yuppie protegés, maybe I just picked the wrong major…but I ain’t got a job yet, and I have a feeling the road to finding one will be fairly dismal.

Ah well. I gots to do it sometime.

7

Yup.

8

I believe the word you are searching for is “unctuous”.

9

I posted this in a similarly-themed thread a while back. Though the intended target was a hypothetical woman seeking a man with “self-confidence”, rather than a man who thinks he lacks it, it seems equally relevant to your case.

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Oh, one thing I should add: though I cleared this up in the other thread, I don’t want to create a corresponding shitstorm in this one. So, allow me to pre-emptively apologize for the comment “…as so many women seem to think…” in paragraph five of the above dissertation. I was a little miffed at some of the attitudes I thought were being expressed when I wrote it, and while I kept myself detached through most of it, I did sneak that one little comment in there unnecessarily. Needless to say, it is an unfair generalization, which is A) incorrect and B) completely removed from my actual point. I therefore ask that you ignore it entirely.

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[popeye] :mad: That’s all I can stands, and I can’t stands no more!..Where’s me spinach? [/popeye]

Some good stuff here from the graveyard shift. Roland, I read your passage back in my lurking days, and drew some very positive insights from it. Thanks for bringing it in. I should add, though, that I’m not entirely convinced that a lot of otherwise intelligent, enlightened women might feel something…uh…hormonally compelling about “abrasive fucking cocks.” Especially if they’ve read too much postfeminist theory.

(Yes, part of my self-actualization strategy is to become hormonally compelling to intelligent, enlightened women…You need to ask?)

Hey gang: This is my first rant, Pit, and thread on the SDMB. (Yay me.) Is it de rigueur to continue ranting, or can I detach now and then into levelheaded discourse?

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Sounds as if you’re confusing confidence with arrogance. There’s a difference.

If you’re as self-actualized as you claim (and I have no doubt that you are), then be confident in being yourself. If, however, you don’t get the girl, get the job, or achieve whatever it is you want then you have accept that you weren’t what the girl was looking for, cut out for the job, or able to achieve. Everyone, no matter how confident, has limitations. If your “Dougy Doug of Dougness” ain’t selling, don’t pout. It cuts both ways.

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I guess it depends on what you mean by “confidence.” I sort of think of confidence as having a positive attitude.

My son would go in for an exam, brimming with “I’m gonna ace this puppy” attitude, and he did. My daughter would take an exam, brimming with “I didn’t study enough, I don’t know enough, I won’t think deep enough, I can’t do it.” She’d ace the exam too, but she worried about it enough to give herself and everyone around her the heebie-jeebies.

Confidence doesn’t have to be about manliness, it has to do with an attitude. Everyone has self-doubts, the question is to what extent (and under what circumstances) you allow those self-doubts to drive your life.

When you meet a person for the first time – let’s say, in a job interview where you’re thinking about hirign them – and the first thing they say about themselves is. “I’m no-good, I’m worthless, I can’t do anything right” … most people will respond, “Well, nice to have met you, don’t call us, we’ll call you.” Think of Eeyore. OTOH, when you meet a person who’s bright and cheerful, you are more inclined to pursue the acquaintance.

Don’t confuse confidence with sycophancy. Nor with deceit. An accurate self-assessment weighs positives and negatives. A self-assessment that is only positive is the mark of an arrogant sunnuvabitch, and a self-assessment that is only negative is the mark of a depressive psychotic. (Self-assessment of someone who’s bipolar, well, that depends.)

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I don’t claim self-actualization. Not by a longshot. (Although I’m getting pretty good at faking it on message boards.)

meanwhile, a correction:

For “might feel,” read: “might not feel.” Ie, the standard “essentialist”, “biology-is-destiny” position.

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ITA. IMO, confidence (and yes, it is an act for the most part) is having faith in yourself. If it’s for a job interview (which is a strange sub world, in my experience), you need to do your prep work. Find out about the company, get that resume shipshape, ask your friends to quiz you on those odd queries they make of people, have ready answers to “your worst performance and your best performance on your previous job” etc.

That is all the prep–but to me, confidence is the feeling inside you that YOU won’t let YOU down. That you will take the interview as it comes, not how it “should” go, not how it might go–confidence is that no matter what comes up, that you can handle it(not like 007, but with quiet grace and civility).

It works the same with women–although I wouldn’t ask friends to quiz you on the odd queries that women have! :slight_smile:

It’s being willing to take the risk in the given situation and stand by/be present in whatever happens.

IMO, the loudest, most opinionated people are the least self-confident–and it shows.

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Confidence: it’s when a guy has self esteem, doesn’t endlessly bag on himself and others, stands up for himself, has goals and works toward them, and doesn’t act like women are some beautiful, inferior, and scary race to be put on pedestals but never treated as equals.

Confidence is not: bragging, trying to impress people with material worth, treating women as objects or playthings, or generally being a jerk.

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Oh but they do! I met my husband from just such a post… nice guys do get the (nice) chicks!

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Without delving into the topic at hand let me just say that that was one of the best pittings I have read in awhile. This is your first time? No way.

“…smooth, callow, subtly dick-swinging arrogance…”

“…to suckle at the fine-grained glossy black hand-tooled Italian-leather tit of ‘confidence.’”

Poetry.

19

Gotta argue with your “act” comment here. True confidence is not an act, but a part of one’s core being. Of course, if one doesn’t have it, one may fake it for a while until one gets a feel for the true thing.

But often those that “put on an act of confidence” are the ones that come off as abrasive, abusive pricks.

20

I’ve always just considered confidence to be the ability to stay in control, if only of yourself, no matter what the situation. It’s not necessarily just about being able to walk into a situation and say “I’ve got the biggest willy in the roon.”…But I guess sometimes it does help. :smiley: