Almost everyone feels afraid from time to time. Almost everyone has wrestled with insecurity at some point. But here’s the thing that matters: what you do when you feel these things is important. People who are successful in relationships feel these things. People who are not successful in relationships feel these things. What’s different is what they do with those feelings.
If you react to these feelings by being passive-aggressive, whiny, clingy, desperate, controlling, or manipulative, that’s a big turn-off. It makes you less attractive to others. If you feel these things but still manage to behave with respect, compassion, and integrity, and you don’t use these feelings to try to manipulate or control others, that’s a huge turn-on. It makes you more attractive to others.
Courage does not mean you don’t feel afraid. Courage is doing the thing you need to do, even though you’re afraid. Confidence does not mean you don’t feel uncertain or insecure. Confidence is doing the thing you choose to do, even though you feel insecure. You believe that all those people who are successful in relationships don’t feel the things you feel.
That’s incorrect. They feel exactly the things you feel; the range of human emotion is present in nearly everyone. The difference is how they behave, not what they feel. Also, women don’t view men crying or feeling afraid as a weakness, they view it as a positive! Assuming it’s done right of course. By the way, men do too. Being authentic and even vulnerable sometimes is essential for human relationships. Everyone has times when they’re insecure, anxious, or in some way not their best. It’s nice to see your partner acknowledge those times, accept them, and move on. It’s the hallmark of a healthy attitude about yourself.
It’s not really possible to never show weaknesses…everyone has them, and if you spend all your time hiding them then you’re actually fully exposing your own insecurity all the time. Now, this isn’t to say that women are universally attracted to crying, emotional men. Some men get that idea from topics like these. Women like men who are overall emotionally healthy and connected, which means people with highs and lows. But the lows are as necessary as the highs. Dressing up nice and confidently taking her around the dance floor will certainly make a lot of women appreciate you, but they’ll also appreciate you spilling syrup on yourself at breakfast at home in your frumpy pyjamas with sleep-flattened hair if you have the confidence to realize that it doesn’t matter. Some of life’s happiest moments are when you slip, drop something, or otherwise screw up and she gets to laugh at me along with me.
It’s not only impossible to never have a downside, but it’s also not desirable. Go out and be an authentic human being with the full range of experiences and you’ll be a lot more successful at dating. This is going to come across as being cynical. And take this answer with whatever amount of salt you feel is needed. But the answer is never. Never show your weakness. Yes, we’re in the 21st century. Men should be able to express themselves. Feminism and all that. But we’re not at that stage yet where millennia of evolution can be overridden. Probably even the women know it’s true on some subconscious level.
The respect, the attraction, all of it wanes. Slowly and gradually. It’s just written into men to not be attracted to weakness. Do you need to talk to someone? Do so with good, close friends. With a therapist, if need be.
But on the long run, you will never escape judgment from your potential mates. And this answer isn’t an anti-woman response. It’s not borne out of some bitterness. As mentioned, it’s subconscious and it’s uncontrollable by the rational part of the brain and it’s inevitable.
credit: sanq4
