you want swagger, LW? Stop describing yourself in feminine terms! You forgot to mention "witty".

Certainly you can BE all these things, but is that really how you see yourself? 'accomplished'? That's a state of being, not movement of becoming.

These are terms you want someone else to gush to her girlfriends ABOUT you.

When you're walking down the street, you know these things in your bones, but what do you see when you look out? You see a pretty young thing, AND YOU FOCUS ON HER! not on how you think she sees you.

There's your confidence, sparky. Confidence to be who you are anyway, and to focus on someone else.

By the way, don't leer, it's creepy.

LW: approach a woman … on the street? Unless you love the feeling of pepper spray as it burns your eyeballs and constricts your bronchial tubes, why would you even want to?

Amy's right. Get thee to a coffee shop.

Trying to pick up women on the street is like trying to get milk from a telephone pole!

LW - Swiss is right.

Men are most attractive when they're, well, men. Manly men. Men who don't try to impress women, because they know they will anyway.

To come across as confident, just be comfortable in yourself. We don't like it when you act like somebody else, it's creepy, and we can spot it a mile off.

Personally, I think dorky guys are cute. I married one. That doesn't mean he isn't confident. Quite the opposite. He's just confident in his dorkiness.

Patrick, I don't know that I'd mace a guy for trying to pick me up on the street. I might arrange to meet him in a brightly lit public place with a few of my friends if he were very, very cute and very, very successful in his pick up, but otherwise I'd just ignore him and keep walking.

Could work though, just not for this guy.

wtf, I don't think you would either. But depending on what street his lives on, the city he lives in (like Brooklyn, maybe?), how he presents himself, and the emotional stability of the woman he's approaching (that he knows absolutely nothing about), he just might get maced.

At least in a coffee shop, you have the opportunity to see someone interact with someone else, even if is just the guy behind the counter. And it is a safer environment in general, for both parties.

LW, just as desperation is not pretty for a woman, trying too hard is not handsome for a man. Don't try too hard. People (especially women, we pick up on that easily) will know. Just be who you are, and you'll be okay.

> To come across as confident, just be comfortable
> in yourself.

If it were that easy, it would have put half of all psychologists out of business.

> We don't like it when you act like somebody else

What if "somebody else" is the confident man you say that women like? What if "somebody else" is the "manly man" you say that women like?

> Just be who you are, and you'll be okay.

Being who he is isn't working - that's why he's asking for advice.

> Men are most attractive when they ... don't try
> to impress women, because they know they will
> anyway.

And yet there are many men who don't impress women, so have to work on it.

Being who he is isn't working - that's why he's asking for advice.

Wrong, Pablo.

See this: "I do well talking to women in social situations where I've had time to warm up."

Where he's going wrong is expecting to be somebody he isn't.

And being "comfortable in yourself" means being realistic about who you are and accepting yourself for yourself. I have ADHD and talk really fast and leap around in conversation. I try to not do that because it makes me hard for "normal" minds to understand. But when I do, I don't feel shame about it -- I just try to slow down. I accept myself but try to do better. This is realistic. I'm not going to talk like some newscaster from the 50s. Ever.

So the underlying question is how to be more confident.
A. People are confident by doing things a lot and often succeeding at them.
B. By challenging yourself in more difficult situations and succeeding sometimes, this can carry through to other areas, being confidence in general.
C. They also become temporarily confident if they are given positive reinforcement, (compliments) the thing with that is it is fast to gain and fast to lose.

So now what. A. Talk to people more, practice, get used to it, not trying to pick them up but just talking to them, until you get used to talking to them outside of where you normally do.
B. Do challenging things. Rock climbing, improv, karate, press your boundaries. Some of this gained confidence will spill over into other areas.

Joe J is on to something. Particularly when he says to talk to people more whether or not you're trying to pick them up.

My brother does this all the time. He is as warm, friendly, and talkative to the guy selling him coffee at the 7-11 as he is to everyone he encounters throughout the day. He takes a genuine interest in meeting new people, attractive women or not, and sincerely hopes their day is really going well. He's not chattering everyone's ear off like an idiot, he is just smiling, welcoming, and cheerful to everyone he meets.

So, when he encounters an attractive woman he'd like to ask out, he simply meets her the same way he meets the overweight and not so attractive woman he very sincerely enjoyed talking with in the checkout line earlier that day. He's all practiced up.

My brother gets more pussy than anyone I know, bar none.

I've recently started doing the same thing in terms of just being friendly and open to everyone I meet and, voila, I've been jerking off a lot less lately. Plus, I have the added benefit of having meaningful interactions with lots of interesting people in my neighborhood. Nearly one hundred percent of humans are pretty cool when met with respect, openness, and sincerity.

My brother does this all the time. He is as warm, friendly, and talkative to the guy selling him coffee at the 7-11 as he is to everyone he encounters throughout the day.

So true! I take ballroom dancing classes, and there are so many men who come in there with the specific goal of "meeting women." And so they only talk up the young, attractive ladies, and it comes off as super creepy.

Meanwhile, there's this one other guy. He talks to everyone. He asks the little old ladies to dance first. He talks to the men. He talks to the receptionist. He talks to the kids that the parents bring to class. He encourages the beginners to "keep at it!" He asks the seasoned pros for their advice. Everyone loves him, and the second he walks into the building, a crowd of people rushes him to say "hi." There is not a girl at this school who wouldn't date him at this point. But when he does talk to a girl whom he may or may not be hitting on, it's not creepy because he's so super friendly with everyone.

I also talk to everyone. It makes life nicer.

Posted by: Amy Alkon at September 12, 2013 10:04 AM

Yes, this is the way to do it. I talk to everyone also, and when you are nice, people who are not in the market for a new relationship, want to introduce you to friends and relatives who ARE interested in a new relationship.

This is a good way to find jobs too.

My new motto. " purr more, hiss less". Im a cat lover, so it works on many levels.

@sofar

"There is not a girl at this school who wouldn't date him at this point"

That's not so much because he's friendly 'per se', but because women judge a man less by who he is, than by the amount and type of attention he gets from others around him ... i.e. they're attracted to him *because* they *know* other girls are attracted to him. Probably he is genuine, but I'm sure he still knows and understands this bit of psychology.

"And so they only talk up the young, attractive ladies, and it comes off as super creepy"

'Creepy' is just an insult nowadays, not really a meaningful term. I have a colleague who also likes to chat up 'young, attractive ladies', e.g. when we travel on business, and he is very successful at it, beds at least one of them on almost every business trip ... and he's not even good-looking. Again, it's not a complicated 'formula', he's confident, and also the girls always know he is 'in demand' from other girls (see above), and while the majority of women might 'see it a mile away' (as you do), a predictable percentage of women either can't see it or don't care, and so he is consistently successful regardless if some might call it 'creepy', he really doesn't care.

Of course if you're looking for a real relationship this probably isn't the way to go. It's also not for me, I'm just not like that. Also, I'm genuinely not really interested in talking to people.

"Nearly one hundred percent of humans are pretty cool when met with respect, openness, and sincerity."

I'm admittedly a curmudgeon, but I have the opposite experience, I find that once you get to know them, you find most people are pretty amoral, irrational creatures that don't genuinely care about being decent human beings (small example: until recently, there was majority support for throwing people in jail just for e.g. owning a bit of weed .. that's not pretty cool', that's sick and evil).