One for the men - your confidence

[legerdemer]

In our society, boys and men are expected to do the asking "out" of girls and women - to go on a date, to walk off into the sunset together, etc. (I'm afraid this question is biased towards heterosexuals, as it makes less sense for "symmetrical" relationships). Presumably that means they need to have a significant amount of nerve to do the asking, and involves getting used to getting turned down a fair amount (just odds, right?).

So... men - when and how did you develop that confidence? Was it hurtful if you were shot down? Problematic? Or did you have no issues, like falling off a log? Did you ever feel you were god's gift?

If it was problematic, how did you go about solving the problem? What strategies did you develop?

Did it get easier with age? Did you learn to steel yourself to "no" and learn to turn the "no" into a "yes" , or did you learn to read women better and only ask if you had a pretty good idea that the answer would be "yes"?

The questions can be asked of gay or lesbian individuals as well when "you" do the asking, and I'd be curious to hear from everyone, regardless of sexual orientation.

Oh yea, and Happy New Year!

 

[Handley_Page]

In our society, boys and men are expected to do the asking "out" of girls and women - to go on a date, to walk off into the sunset together, etc. (I'm afraid this question is biased towards heterosexuals, as it makes less sense for "symmetrical" relationships). Presumably that means they need to have a significant amount of nerve to do the asking, and involves getting used to getting turned down a fair amount (just odds, right?).

So... men - when and how did you develop that confidence? Was it hurtful if you were shot down? Problematic? Or did you have no issues, like falling off a log? Did you ever feel you were god's gift?

If it was problematic, how did you go about solving the problem? What strategies did you develop?

Did it get easier with age? Did you learn to steel yourself to "no" and learn to turn the "no" into a "yes" , or did you learn to read women better and only ask if you had a pretty good idea that the answer would be "yes"?

The questions can be asked of gay or lesbian individuals as well when "you" do the asking, and I'd be curious to hear from everyone, regardless of sexual orientation.

Oh yea, and Happy New Year!

Personally, I never had a deal of self-confidence in the matter of dating /personal relationships.

However, as I learned a few things, such as which fork to use in a posh restaurant and what colour of shirt goes with a black blazer, I felt able to take the occasional girl out. AS to how old I was, I guess it must have been about 17/18 ish. No, it did not hurt much to be shot down; with my luck, that was the norm.

 

[lovecraft68]

No never bothered me. I think I used to go with the statistical inevitability that every no would bring me closer to a yes

I have never thought I was God's gift, I leave that for the 'real men'

Which speaking of my strategy was to not be a posturing peacock and idiotic jerk. Nor was I ever desperate.

As I got older I began using apathy, the "Hmm, I said no and he didn't seem phased" or "Every guy's checking me out, why isn't he?"

I was the bad boy type when I was younger and because of it a lot of women expressed interest in me enough that I picked the clear signal of "You know, if you were to ask, it would be yes"

When I would approach, I was fairly smooth, good sense of humor, not pushy, and would carry on a conversation about general things until either I had to leave or they had to, then slip in a request for a number. I never rushed and I never seemed needy or back to desperate again, I gave the impression I would like a yes, but no wouldn't kill me.

I've never lacked confidence, but didn't cross into cocky, except one time that I can recall and somehow that led to a month long game of cat and mouse with the type of woman who'd been raised to avoid my type and that eventually ended with her agreeing to a date because for some reason I did keep asking her-and getting shot down-I ended up getting that "he's trying really hard, a cup of coffee couldn't hurt" type yes.

Got the lifelong yes two years later

 

[Ewobbit]

To be completely honest, I never did understand all that happy horseshit. I mean, if a human being happens to be female and she happens to be into me, why the fuck can't she just SAY so?

I'm actually writing at (not on, but at) a story that if I ever get it finished and submitted will be under the "First Time" heading which is a true account of my first time. The reasons are long and myriad and I won't get into them here, but I had absolutely NO confidence when it came to women.

To keep a long story as short as possible, I would still be a virgin today most likely if she hadn't taken the initiative of undoing my pants and taking my dick in her mouth. A signal even I couldn't misunderstand.

I never have understood the whole signals game. If I want to play a game, I'll haul out the chess board with my hand crafted porcelain fantasy figure chess set and we can play.

Now, in the spirit of complete honesty, I will admit that the number of women who have been willing to take that step and do something so blatent has been few. And, from talking to some that I never did have more than friendship with, I missed out on a LOT of opportunities that would have been if I had been willing to take the step.

But, all in all, I'm content with the one among them who didn't decide she couldn't keep up when she broke the dam and figured she wasn't letting me get away.

Oh, and the worst they can do ISN'T say "No." There is always laughter. Or puking on your shoes.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

I didn't have many rejections, and when I did a few of them went out with me the 2nd or 3rd time I asked. You wont appeal to all, and often they really have other plans. Babe Ruth didn't knock every ball outta the park.

But mostly girls let me know they were interested. They will let you know.

I was in a Laundromat drying my clothes when my future wife came up and sat by me. The place was empty. We talked for a while, she left, and after she was about a block away I called out WANNA GO OUT SATURDAY? She then called me a son of a bitch and said YES. We were married about 3 months later.

 

[Handley_Page]

To be completely honest, I never did understand all that happy horseshit.

Oh, and the worst they can do ISN'T say "No." There is always laughter. Or puking on your shoes.

Oh I've had those.
And the laughter is the worst.

 

[Ewobbit]

Oh I've had those.
And the laughter is the worst.

Oh, the pointing and laughing is bad. But, I think the puking was worse.

Of course in my case, I have a NOTORIOUSLY weak stomach. So, when she puked, so did I.

And, when I puke, I can't do it quietly. And it is, apparently, pretty... um... bad sounding.

So, that set off her friends... and most of the other people in earshot. (Which was further than you might think.)

And them puking made me keep puking which made them .... well, you get the idea.

I don't think ANYONE in that parking lot got laid that night.

 

[NotWise]

I never spent that much time in the usual dating scene that you're asking about.

I had a confidence problem in puberty but I was out of that by the time I was 14. Later, success in various kinds of competitions boosted my confidence some more.

I wasn't much into regular dating until after I had a car and a place of my own. Before that, what could I do with a girl? Instead, I had girls/women who were friends and we would change our relationship by mutual agreement and then work out how to do it.

A little later (late 70's) the club scene was everything. You had to have the confidence to approach a girl and ask her to dance but that (and the confidence to look foolish on a dance floor and not care) was about it. I met my wife that way, so I never got back to the dating scene.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

A hot blonde Russian girl is hot for my grandson, they attend the same college. She got elected to the homecoming court and asked my grandson to escort her. He did, and she's smitten with him. He's 6-3 and there on a sports/academic full ride scholarship...he's smart too.

But he's not sure he wants a girlfriend, and I warned him that 45 years from now he'll think of her and kick himself in the ass. Besides, he might like Russia.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Where we fuck up with women is when they score you for sex, income, prospects, addictions. Sex is important but they can get sex anywhere, the first question is: WILL HE BE PROSPEROUS? Money and sex will cinch it. So I cheated and married a rich girl.

 

[Nathan_Brazil]

There's a thin line betwixt confidence and arrogance.

Confidence: Could you

Arrogance: you should

 

[Handley_Page]

There's a thin line betwixt confidence and arrogance.

Confidence: Could you
Arrogance: you should

I disagree.

Confidence: I'll ask
Arrogance: No point in asking; she'll say yes.

 

[Nathan_Brazil]

Also true.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

There's a thin line betwixt confidence and arrogance.

Confidence: Could you

Arrogance: you should

Naaah. Arrogance is, I'M OKAY YOURE NOT OKAY.

Confidence is, I'M OKAY, YOURE OKAY.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I don't think I asked a girl out, except for one and she sat next to me in home room in high school for three years before I finally gained the courage to ask her to home coming dance in senior year.

All other dates were arranged by other girls/women that were attached in one way or the other to buddies. Most were nice and some I even dated a second or more times.

The longest relationship I had before getting married, was with that girl from high school. And if things had been just a little different, we might have ended up being married. But once again I was introduced to my wife of 44 year...by that same girl from high school. Try and figure that one out.

Even today, some 49 years after high school, if I found myself single again, I'm afraid I would find it hard to ask a woman out, unless I had been friends with her for a long time. And then maybe not even then.

 

[Bramblethorn]

To be completely honest, I never did understand all that happy horseshit. I mean, if a human being happens to be female and she happens to be into me, why the fuck can't she just SAY so?

Social consequences. Women who openly express hetero desire risk being shamed as "easy", "sluts", etc. etc. in a way that rarely happens to men.

There are male celebs who happily boast of sleeping with thousands of women. Unless there's an obvious victim (e.g. Tiger Woods) it rarely does their reputation any harm and often it's portrayed as something to envy. Hugh Hefner's seen as a success story, but if a ninety-year-old woman used her money to surround herself with young male concubines she'd be treated as a mentally-ill freak show.

 

[Ewobbit]

Oh, I get it now. JUST found the entry in the lingerie thread where Legerdemer threatened... er, promised? to break this off into it's own thread. And the questions that were written there.

The thing is, in every other way I was downright cocky. Or at least came across that way. I always walked around with my head up, my shoulders back, and picked up my feet. I didn't slouch or shuffle around with my head down and looked people straight in the eye.

Ah... but for the rest of the story...

I broke my collar bone before I even started to school and had to wear one of those harnesses that force your shoulders back. So, it wasn't really that I was looking to bump chests with a wall. It was early conditioning.

My father was a tightwad. And the thing I can remember him getting the most incensed about was having to replace my shoes. After a few times getting cuffed across the back of the head and told to "Pick your feet up!", I started... well, prancing. I would lift my feet to my knee before putting it down. Once I started to school, that died down a little from being made fun of. But, I still picked it up to mid-shin with each step.

Last, but not least, I memorized the eye chart. I was sixteen when an optometrist near us got one of those fancy computers that changed the lines on us. (The cad!) And we figured out I was legally blind. I always thought people were full of shit when they said they could tell who was sitting on the opposite side of the basketball court. So, I wasn't really meeting their eyes. I couldn't tell the shapeless blob I was looking at was looking back!

So, in fact, what came across as cockiness was, for the most part, a by-product of early conditioning.

For the rest, by the time I started junior high, I was already ahead of what the Seniors in High School were covering. And decided it did me a fat lot of good since I was about as popular as leprosy. So, I went into athletics in a big way. As a freshman, I figured out that I had absolutely no talent at any sport that didn't involve knocking the crap out of each other and being able to get back up and dropped the rest.

I actually had some photos sent in to be a model at one point. The company decided to use a different site. But, knowing that I was considered if they had gone with the nearer one let me know I wasn't exactly fugly.

So, as far as that goes, I guess I was a little cocky. I tended to blow the curve on standardized tests and when it came to blows was always the last guy standing. (College walk-on tryouts were an eye opener.)

And, I didn't really have any trouble talking to girls... so long as it was just friends. But, the moment there was ANY SORT of sexual tension going on, I started stuttering and stammering and "Oh, would you look at the time? I have band rehearsal."

 

[NOIRTRASH]

I was raised around so many women talking to them was never a problem, but I had to learn to be interesting to women. Older women always liked me better than my peers liked me, I suppose because they wanted someone informed and attracted to them. They wanna be desired and talked to like they matter.

 

[legerdemer]

Oh, I get it now. JUST found the entry in the lingerie thread where Legerdemer threatened... er, promised? to break this off into it's own thread. And the questions that were written there.

The thing is, in every other way I was downright cocky. Or at least came across that way. I always walked around with my head up, my shoulders back, and picked up my feet. I didn't slouch or shuffle around with my head down and looked people straight in the eye.

Ah... but for the rest of the story...

I broke my collar bone before I even started to school and had to wear one of those harnesses that force your shoulders back. So, it wasn't really that I was looking to bump chests with a wall. It was early conditioning.

My father was a tightwad. And the thing I can remember him getting the most incensed about was having to replace my shoes. After a few times getting cuffed across the back of the head and told to "Pick your feet up!", I started... well, prancing. I would lift my feet to my knee before putting it down. Once I started to school, that died down a little from being made fun of. But, I still picked it up to mid-shin with each step.

Last, but not least, I memorized the eye chart. I was sixteen when an optometrist near us got one of those fancy computers that changed the lines on us. (The cad!) And we figured out I was legally blind. I always thought people were full of shit when they said they could tell who was sitting on the opposite side of the basketball court. So, I wasn't really meeting their eyes. I couldn't tell the shapeless blob I was looking at was looking back!

So, in fact, what came across as cockiness was, for the most part, a by-product of early conditioning.

For the rest, by the time I started junior high, I was already ahead of what the Seniors in High School were covering. And decided it did me a fat lot of good since I was about as popular as leprosy. So, I went into athletics in a big way. As a freshman, I figured out that I had absolutely no talent at any sport that didn't involve knocking the crap out of each other and being able to get back up and dropped the rest.

I actually had some photos sent in to be a model at one point. The company decided to use a different site. But, knowing that I was considered if they had gone with the nearer one let me know I wasn't exactly fugly.

So, as far as that goes, I guess I was a little cocky. I tended to blow the curve on standardized tests and when it came to blows was always the last guy standing. (College walk-on tryouts were an eye opener.)

And, I didn't really have any trouble talking to girls... so long as it was just friends. But, the moment there was ANY SORT of sexual tension going on, I started stuttering and stammering and "Oh, would you look at the time? I have band rehearsal."

This was quite funny. Except for the parts about your father.

Mine would call me an idiot if I got any answers wrong, to make sure I wasn't becoming spoiled and cocky. I was an A student. Oh yea - and if I bumped into a table or something by mistake, he called me a clumsy elephant. (My weight was average, but I was somewhat clutzy. I became more clutzy. LOL)

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Someone put this thread on life support.

 

[GoldenCojones]

I was pretty shy as a kid. I grew up on a ranch outside a small (very small) town in SE Colorado. I went on a couple of dates with a couple of girls but IRL I don't talk much and so I never went on a second date until I went off to college at the University of Colorado. Talk about an eye opening experience. After graduation I met my first wife and lived through hell for five years then divorced and two years later moved to Texas and found people I could relate to and like. Met my current wife who I believe I will be married to for the rest of my life, coming up on 20 years now.

I wouldn't say I ever had a confidence problem but I was shy and introverted (still am). Being told no hurt. I never had anyone laugh or throw up though so maybe that's how I survived. My current wife and I have two daughters and I've never missed having a boy. I know the kind of intense competitive pressure society puts on young men. I don't know what society puts women through, so I'm intentionally oblivious My wife and my daughters are my reason for living and everything that goes with it.

 

[jomar]

I didn't have much of a clue in high school...could have had some experiences I'd been more assertive per reunions.

Had fun in college, got easier to chat, got less worried about a "no thanks."

After college I got pretty direct in a diplomatic way and half the women I talked to said "sure."

Big picture, I'm the same guy whether a woman says yes to a date or not...I figure if not, we're not a match, nothing more, nothing less.

 

[sr71plt]

The questions can be asked of gay or lesbian individuals as well when "you" do the asking, and I'd be curious to hear from everyone, regardless of sexual orientation.

Oh yea, and Happy New Year!

Happy New Year back.

I think I only had to ask once--latching onto a steady in high school. She said "yes" after mentioning the possibility herself and we were a couple for over three years. I went to three senior proms in a row, without asking for the date. I just asked the steady girlfriend what flowers would go with what she was wearing--for the other two proms, the girl asked me (it wasn't my senior prom). The three women I subsequently was with (the last being my wife of nearly fifty years) all latched onto me without anyone doing the asking, I think.

I never have asked a man for anything either. Most didn't ask me either. They told me what they wanted and it was my position to agree to it or not.

I was twenty-eight before I had the slightest clue how this was supposed to work by the social customs you mention. And I guess you could say that my self-confidence has been fine precisely because I haven't had to do the asking.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

I didn't have much of a clue in high school...could have had some experiences I'd been more assertive per reunions.

Had fun in college, got easier to chat, got less worried about a "no thanks."

After college I got pretty direct in a diplomatic way and half the women I talked to said "sure."

Big picture, I'm the same guy whether a woman says yes to a date or not...I figure if not, we're not a match, nothing more, nothing less.

All you need know about women are: theyre crazy as shithouse rats and their hormones make their moods like a kaleidoscope. That is ever last one of them is schizo-affective disordered.

 

[legerdemer]

I was pretty shy as a kid. I grew up on a ranch outside a small (very small) town in SE Colorado. I went on a couple of dates with a couple of girls but IRL I don't talk much and so I never went on a second date until I went off to college at the University of Colorado. Talk about an eye opening experience. After graduation I met my first wife and lived through hell for five years then divorced and two years later moved to Texas and found people I could relate to and like. Met my current wife who I believe I will be married to for the rest of my life, coming up on 20 years now.

I wouldn't say I ever had a confidence problem but I was shy and introverted (still am). Being told no hurt. I never had anyone laugh or throw up though so maybe that's how I survived. My current wife and I have two daughters and I've never missed having a boy. I know the kind of intense competitive pressure society puts on young men. I don't know what society puts women through, so I'm intentionally oblivious My wife and my daughters are my reason for living and everything that goes with it.

Nicely put.