The Four Phases of Confidence
Today I want to talk a little bit about confidence. It’s probably more a yang (masculine) quality than a yin (feminine) one. But I’ll just assume it’s of general interest and address both the men and the women.
First of all, what the heck is confidence? It’s what linguists call a nominalization – basically a noun that stands in for a bunch of verbs.
Whenever you have a nominalization, you get confusion. Because each one of us defines that nominalization in our own special way. So words like ‘confidence’, ‘courage’ and ‘understanding’ effectively have 6.5 billion definitions.
So however you define confidence, let’s agree on this much: it doesn’t exist. At least not in the traditional sense of existing.
You can’t put it in a wheelbarrow, and you can’t pinpoint its location in your brain in a PET scan. Not even those fancy, souped up fMRI scans can find it.
It’s a state of mind — some mixture of willingness and self-possession. It’s a catalyst to action but not action itself. Whatever it is, like porn, we know it when we see it.
Our discussion today is mostly about social confidence, but it’s applicable to any other kind of confidence that matters to you.
There are four kinds of confidence. The first kind I’ll call unconscious confidence.
This is a bit like ‘unconscious incompetence’, the first phase of learning, except that you’re not incompetent – you’re SUPER-competent!
This is the fearless confidence of kids. They’ll go up to any stranger and engage in conversation. They’ll say “I love you” within minutes of meeting you. They just don’t know any better than to be outrageous and outgoing and do their heart’s desire.
Gradually, through the teachings of parents and culture, they learn that it’s not okay to (more…)
Dating for Men: How to Get MORE Dates by Getting Pickier
Today I want to talk about how being discriminating in dating can make you more successful in dating.
Before I start, I want to follow up on the story from the last article about my friend Aaron.
Remember how when he asked out this really attractive young woman, she immediately reeled off the names of the 4 most expensive restaurants in town?
Remember how I told you that it was a sign of trouble?
Well, let me tell you what happened on that date.
Contrary to my advice, my friend Aaron agreed to go on the date. And also agreed to go to one of the restaurants she named.
He also did not use my little formula for turning around the expensive taste of the young lady on herself by saying something like this: (more…)
Why the smartest people have the toughest time dating
I have a mini-confession to make: I wrote the Tao of Dating books specifically for really smart people (both women and men). The writing of the books was precipitated by the endemic dating woes on the Harvard campus, as I observed them as an advisor and, earlier, wallowed in them as a student.
Those kids graduate and pretty much continue to have the same dating woes — only now with fewer single people around living in the same building and sharing meals with them every day. So if they had challenges then, it gets about 1000 times worse once they’re expelled from the warm womb of alma mater.
From my observations, the following dating challenges are common to most smart people. In fact, the smarter you are, the more 
clueless you will be, and the more problems you’re going to have in your dating life.
On the one hand, this makes (more…)
Dating: Why dinner dates suck as a first date
Earlier this week I was having a conversation with a friend about how dinner dates are probably one of the worst ways of getting to know someone. It’s basic stuff, but well worth repeating, because, well, people seem to keep on having these dinner dates. Much of what I write here concerns the loftier aspects of the self and deep connection and all that good stuff. At the same time, remember that this real-world stuff about where the pogo stick hits the asphalt matters, too.
So let me make it clear: if a couple got together after a first date that involved dinner, it happened in spite of the date, not because of it. You heard it here first. Here are some reasons why.
1) The seating arrangement promotes discomfort.
Think about it: at what other time in your life are you face-to-face with a stranger (more…)
Dating for Men: The Art & Science of 3D Super-Attraction
Recently I had the pleasure of reading a very interesting book on the inner workings of the human mind.
It’s by Jonathan Haidt, and it’s called The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom. If you’re fascinated by the science behind how humans tick and how it relates to ancient wisdom, I highly recommend that you read this book.
Haidt mentions that in all cultures, human societies have been organized along two dimensions: hierarchy and closeness/liking. Call one the x-axis, the other the y-axis.
Hierarchy is simple enough: people have status according to their power, title, wealth or fame.
And closeness — what I will call kinship — is also straightforward. Society is organized according to friends, family, co-workers, acquaintances and strangers.
Haidt then introduces a third dimension: a dimension of the divine. All cultures seem to recognize some things as nobler, purer and more divine, and other things as profane and impure. (more…)
