I’m not an athletic person and I never will be. I’m not overweight but I’m never ever going to be good at soccer or football.
Nevertheless, I do have confidence. I honestly took the “just have self-confidence!” mantra to heart, and it hasn’t been getting me anywhere.
Well fair enough. I mean, I was slated to be a backup goalkeeper in division III soccer and trained mixed martial arts but never had a pro fight. I’m not a great athlete, but I do try to keep myself in shape. That’s important in showing that you have discipline, but there’s a bad side where girls hate guys that get hung up on their OWN looks. No girl wants a guy that’s a diva! So you don’t have to be a great athlete; my point was be in shape and take an interest in some masculine things. I’m addicted to sports and politics, definitely manly areas, but I am terrible at anything related to tools and carpentry. It’s embarrassing actually; I just don’t know anything about being handy and despite repeated attempts I’ve only gotten mildly better. At least my wife is pretty handy so we don’t end up with everything broken around the house.
But what every guy should do is boost his strengths and cover his weaknesses. If you’re not a great athlete, be handy. If your jokes fall flat, work around it. And if you really aren’t getting anywhere with confidence, you’re not really taking it to heart. Women can sense when that layer of confidence is only skin deep, so cover it up. Either really believe it or go with the “oh I don’t really have confidence in myself, I’m really not that great” but be sure to drop that line after you’ve said or done something that’s charmed her. Because then you’ve revealed the truth but she takes it as being modest and you get a secondary boost! For the record, I did exactly that on my second date with my wife. She later came to recognize that yes, I have self-confidence but I’m also kind of sensitive. It was an appropriate way to start to open up a bit about myself while also trying to be charming.
This is all for early dating stuff, just to get your foot in the door. Once you’re past that, I’d never advocate for any “gaming” of a woman beyond the standard courting, chasing and all that fun stuff. But take your approach to women as you would a job interview; you exude confidence, you talk about your strengths, you get her to talk about herself and what she does or what she’s interested in and you admit some flaws but deflect most of it. The only difference with this “job interview” is that you want to be a bit mysterious to get her hooked in. Then once you’re dating you can slowly be totally yourself and hopefully she does the same so you can see what it would be like to be with her for good.
But it’s not dishonest to game a little bit. Hey, women put on makeup and spend an hour on their hair to make guys take a second look; why can’t you have a little edge too?!