Steve, I appreciate your thoughts. Yes, they are truth darts. Am I a tough guy? I don't come across as one. I'm a nice guy but am working on this. I can be mysterious I just need to learn how.
Another important point to all of this, is that it doesn't have to be "fake" or just a persona you "put on". I see comments here and there on these forums about how some of the advice like this looks like "a bunch of beta guys trying to act alpha" or that adopting some of these behaviors is "fake" or "manipulative". I really take issue with those characterizations. Anyone can change how they behave, and any behavior can become habitual/ingrained (i.e. "who you are"). What's more, alot of these behaviors, I am convinced, synch up very well with who we are primally as men. In my case, I was never a hugely outgoing, super-talkative person, or one who was "easy to get to know" or who would banter alot with people I didn't know well, although i wasn't a wallflower, either. (I actually almost always test around 50/50 on introvert/extrovert on those "personality type" tests.) The thing is, I found out that bantering/flirting is fun... so is being a little mysterious. Quite simply, it's part of being playful... which every person, not just men... need. The feedback you get from engaging folks that way is almost universally positive... which makes it even more fun.
Similar dynamic with confidence... it's a self-enforcing feedback loop. It feeds who we really are, who we want to be, and the feedback you get from others, implicit or explicit, validates that and helps it become part of who you are.
Hope this helps.
Last edited by hoosjim; 01/30/2004:22 PM.
H53/W51, R-ing 4/'18
"Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires"-Sg.of Sg 2:7
"So oftentimes it happens,that we live our lives in chains, & we never even know we have the key"-Eagles III 1:3
