Trying to control what impression we make causes unnecessary stress
When in public, we often try to control how we might be perceived. This is especially true when an attractive woman is present: at the very least, we want to appear confident. Yet this is precisely the trait that cannot be manufactured by deliberate effort: confidence and self-conscious monitoring are incompatible.
The more we try to be confident, the more we deviate from that ideal. Even if through training we manage to act like a confident person, we don’t feel like one. Every moment there is a risk looming over us like an executioner’s axe: that a twitch of a muscle, a nervous glance, a crack in our voice or some other uncontrolled behavior will betray us and the whole act will crumble. Or we might run into an unusual situation, one for which we haven’t trained, and for which we don’t have a prepared response. And then we will appear not just as someone lacking confidence - we will also appear as someone who is pretending hard to be someone he is not, i.e., as a fraud.
Only one trait can be honestly displayed through willful effort: that of a self-conscious stiffness. There is nothing wrong with that particular trait, but we don’t typically want to project it.
The fear of appearing fake or, more broadly, of failing to project the right personality, doesn’t just cause us discomfort during an interaction - it might prevent us from initiating or allowing an interaction in the first place. Even a brief, inconsequential social encounter might appear important, risky and cause stress when we turn it into such an elaborate performance and increase the stakes.
There is an unpleasant but liberating solution to this conundrum: allow that others might see us as awkward, inept, pathetic and whatever other impression we might consider undesirable. This includes the very women we might try to attract.
Note: I wrote this post a long time ago as a private draft. Recently Aaron from Life Improvement Schemes wrote an amazing post and a guide on similar themes:
