When dating, "Just be confident" is just bad advice if you ask me.
When dating, "Just be confident" is just bad advice if you ask me.
"Being confident" is dangerously close to straight up bothering people. Plus it only really works if you're good looking.
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I think it's been conflated with simply "having self-esteem". So many guys (and a few women), are just so meek and weird about flirting or even just having casual conversations with the opposite sex. Like they see themselves as a social burden, but they just have to approach and give weird compliments anyway.
Like, you've seen sorta fugly people with attractive partners, right? Or two not-so attractive people dating? Someone had to make a move, and those people had self-esteem / confidence.
Confidence isn't just reserved for the physically attractive. It's ok to value other aspects of yourself and derive your self-worth from that.
If you're bothering people who turned you down already, or you're too unaware to notice, then that's a different problem altogether. I've seen plenty of guys with zero confidence linger in a convo they thought was going somewhere.
The tricky thing I've noticed in myself is, feeling like a bother or a burden makes me a bother or a burden. Going in feeling like they will be bothered makes me act in awkward ways that is a bother to others. Trying to enter a conversation despite feeling like I'm going to be a burden is similar, I'm just relying on their charity or hoping they don't notice that I'm a burden. Super awkward.
Entering a conversation believing they want to talk but also willing to leave if the vibes aren't right seems to be the best balance for me.