r/confidence

It happened this past Saturday night. I finally was able to get erect and put it inside of her. I wasn't able to ejaculate quite yet, but I at least got the monkey off my back. I spent my entire teens, 20s, and early 30s self-loathing because of it (had the opportunity at 17, but little guy didn't want to swell up). Now I can finally be at peace with myself and the the world. I have been walking on clouds the past day and a half, and can finally focus on my future.

I realizes that I am constantly draining my own energy because I keep expecting others to act how I want them to and it's just leaving me feeling totaly burnt out and frustrated. I keep putting my peace of mind in their hands insted of taking responsability for my own bounderies and that is exactly why I feel like I'm hitting a wall every single day. I am trying to change how I aproach this because I know that wanting people to be perfect or to do things exactly my way is just a trap I set for myself. For those who have been in this spot before, let's shaare some help figuring out how to manage better, so we can stop wasting energy on things we cant control. How do you stop yourself from expecting others to be perfect? I would like you to share with us your experience

Hello, I (24f) am supposed to house/dogsit for a family friend this weekend. They live in a REALLY nice luxury apartment complex with a really nice gym and rooftop pool.

While getting the rundown of the dog and everything, they told me to feel free to use the gym and pool. At first I was super excited about this, as I live in a crappy apartment and haven’t stayed anywhere this nice.

But I just hate my body right now, I’ve been going to the gym for the last couple weeks so I do want to use it to keep myself motivated, I haven’t seen much progress yet but I’m pretty determined to keep up with myself. Bathing suits have also been a big challenge recently.

I saw some of the people that reside here and I just feel super out of place. They all seem super fit and wealthy so I just feel my anxiety acting up already.

I’ll be really mad at myself if I don’t utilize these things but I can see me talking myself out of it. If someone wants to give me a boost please do lol.

I used to care so much about what other people thought of me. What my coworkers thought, what my family thought, what strangers on the internet thought. I was basically outsourcing my self worth to people who weren't even thinking about me half the time.

At some point I realized the only opinion that actually lives with me 24 hours a day is my own. Everyone else's voice eventually fades. Your own never does.

So if you're going to have a voice in your head that never shuts up it might as well be saying something worth hearing.

Started telling myself every morning that I am enough. Not in a cringe affirmation way, just a quiet honest reminder before the day gets loud. It felt stupid the first week. It doesn't anymore.

Your opinion of yourself is the foundation everything else is built on. Other people's opinions are just weather. They change, they pass, they were never really yours to carry in the first place.

Tell yourself you are worthy. Not because life is perfect or because you have it figured out. Just because you are still here, still trying, and that actually counts for something.

Anyone else been working on this? Would love to hear what's been helping people.

Male, 23. I have been having a hard time getting into any relationship, and a big reason why I started so late in my life is because I didn't realize until some time ago: I don't love myself. I don't view myself as ever enough. I don't see myself as someone worthy enough to date.
People tell me to be confident, but how can I be confident when I'm never someone's first choice? I also believe I'm slowly becoming a pessimistic person, and my time with my life-long friends is going to come to an end most likely because of how I'm acting. I can't help it. I know too much about a lot of things that are happening.
I truly believe it's because I don't love myself. How I know is from when I did at 19 years old. My life felt good not because I was 19, but because I understood the values I carried, was happy with them, and viewed myself as someone worthy and determined for anything I wanted. That's changed now. I got kicked down by my mother and never recovered, and I started spiraling from there. And here we are now.
I truly don't love myself. I didn't want this to be a rant, but I also wanted people to understand the full story. So, if you have any advice that really could help me, I will appreciate it.

Wherever I go, I feel extremely insecure, in many, many aspects of my life. By just seeing people, I feel extremely insecure.

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I don't know why but I just feel like people in public settings quickly judge or form a judgment of someone in matter of seconds whether that person is nice or a threat. From weak posture or strong posture. From confident voice or shallow anxious type. Is it really really true that looks and how you dress matter even though society may say just simply be yourself. Like in a room full of people I guess such things like personality, attitude and so much more matters huh?

Hello everyone,

M25 here, and, as the title says, lastly I have been having suicidal thoughts because of many failed attempts of getting a girlfriend. I will tell my backstory in order to fully understand my point of view.

Ever since I was a child, I had difficulties in socializing with girls when it came to romantic interest. Until I was 16, I have been rejected 3 times. Each time, I have been respectful, kind and with pure intentions. But each time I have been rejected. And one time even brutally rejected and bullied by my classmates for shooting my shot. ( "Hahah you are such a loser kid, did you seriously think you had a chance?" - something like that). When I was 14 I even had a suicide attempt because of a girl rejecting me. My mind was telling me that: "Dude, you have done everything that society told you to do: be kind, gentle and respectful and girls will accept you; so if this doesn't work it means you will never find true love so what's the point of living".

After this, I started highschool, and I noticed a change in the social interactions. The girls were dating only the cool guys instead of a shy nerd guy like me. I was devastated. - My family told me to treat girls nicely, and they will date me, but clearly the fuck boys are not treating them right and they still date them.

Ever since then, I desperately tried to be the cool guy in order to make girls attracted to me. But it felt like wearing a mask to hide that deep down I was being a loser. I started reading books about seduction and attending masculinity classes in order to learn how to become a man that women desire. I spent a quite amount of money on this courses from different "masculinity coaches" in a desperate attempt to become a man. Because that's what I realised I was lacking and those cool guys had. They were more masculine than me.

Anyway, by trying to replicate this alpha male behaviour, I finally got a girlfriend at 16. But I still couldn't believe that she was attracted by me. I was thinking like : she is attracted to this mask of mine, but if it falls, she will dump me for a genuine cool guy. Despite my obvious insecurites, the relationship lasted 1.5 years and I ended it because I couldn't keep my mask anymore and it felt incredibly stressful.

After this, I decided to get into Computer Science for my graduate degree, because the masculinity courses taught me: If you are not an authentic cool guy, you need to compensate with money or status in order to be accepted by women. And 6 years after that, I completed my bachelor and masters degree, and I am having a good job in this field. I think I am around top 15% in my country regarding monthly payment.

During these 6 years, I didn't give much attention to dating because I thought: I will try when I have enough money, what's the point of trying now, when I am an incomplete man and pile up more rejections?

But now I think I am ready. I have a good paying job, a decent physique ( not fully ripped yet, but I will get there), good fashion style and I am trying to be as likeable as possible. But the rejections are devastating. Ghosting over ghosting and low interest replies are hitting me in the heart like an arrow. With each rejection from a woman I am telling myself: "See, you are a piece of trash after all and no man at all. Otherwise a woman would be with you right now".

In the last year, I also started paying for sexual services because I want to be intimate with a woman. I want to enjoy sex, and be able to hold hands and laugh and go out, and enjoy my time togheter with her. But being a paid service, it is clearly an illusion. After the time runs out, the illusion fades, and the reality kicks back in. And after all, I have seen guys that were more rude than me with women and still got dates, and me, despite being a such a nice and caring person, putting everyone else above me, always there for helping someone, is getting rejected like he has some kind of disease. It is not fair man. Life is not fair. I worked my ass in college to get a good paying job and be a high value man. I think I deserve some attention from women.

With each day that passes, my mental health is declining more and more. I started taking sleeping pills, because I am scared that I will die alone, with no family and no children. In the meantime some of my friends are getting into long term relationships or getting married, and it seems like I am the last person on earth a woman would choose and I don't understand why. I really want to end this. What have I done to deserve this loneliness ? How many more standards do I need to meet in order to recieve some attention from women?

I feel I can't be happy in social settings. I'm usually quiet in big social groups, although I wish to be more chatty and let people know me more. But I always end up being left out which saddens me, but I got used to being ignored and spending most of the time on my own. However, life and family struggles seem to always steal my happiness in those moments. I feel I can't enjoy being with people that much and this has affected me on so many levels. I become a lot more talkative in smaller groups or 1-to-1.

Any advice on how to overcome this? I feel like nothing brings me joy and I don't deserve good things in life.

i’m so sick of always caring too much what people think of me how do i stop this. any help appreciated xx

Was I smooth or did I move too fast? Honest feedback needed

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Met a woman today who works at a hotel.

I approached her casually and opened by saying she looked familiar and asked if she had a sister in New York. That turned into a real conversation and we vibed well.

She mentioned she’s originally from New York and is visiting next month. We kept talking and getting to know each other. I asked about her interests (gym, hiking, outdoors, etc.) and brought up UFC since I host watch parties.

She was engaged the whole time and eventually wrote her number down for me. For context, she’s married (no kids).

Later we ended up grabbing coffee and talked in person. Conversation went well and felt natural.

At one point I was pretty direct about my intentions instead of keeping it strictly friendly, and she didn’t shut it down.

I kept the vibe going and complimented her multiple times. I told her I wasn’t trying to be in the friend zone and that when she visits New York we should do something fun. She agreed. During the coffee, I didn’t ask her about her husband at all. After we left the coffee shop, I gave her a hug and we kissed on the lips for about 10 seconds.

Afterwards, we kept texting and I asked if she’d be down to grab a quick vanilla chai latte before she goes into work tomorrow morning around 6:40am, and she was open to it.

From start to finish it felt smooth in the moment, but I’m trying to get an outside perspective.

Was this confident/smooth or did I move too fast given the situation?

Be honest.

I was on a solo trip to Uttarakhand a while ago. No plan, just a bus ticket and a head full of noise I wanted to leave behind.

One evening, somewhere between Almora and Kasar Devi, I found a tiny tea stall. No signboard. Just a tin roof, a kerosene lamp, and an old man sitting cross-legged on a wooden plank. I was the only customer.

He poured chai without asking. We sat in silence for ten minutes, watching the valley swallow the last light. Then he said it—quietly, without even looking at me:

"Tum bhaagne aaye ho, lekin yahan tumhe wahi milega jisse bhaag rahe ho."

(You’ve come to run away, but here you’ll only find the thing you’re running from.)

I laughed nervously. He didn’t. He just handed me another chai and went back to his silence.

I’ve thought about that sentence every single day since I came back. The mountains didn’t fix me. They just held a mirror, and the mirror was quieter than the city but no kinder.

I’m not sharing this as a travel tip. I’m sharing because I think we all carry a sentence like that—something a stranger said once that we never forgot. Maybe it was on a train, in a hospital waiting room, at a bus stop. Something that shook something loose.

I’d genuinely love to hear yours. What did they say? And did it change anything?

When people call you ugly on multiple occasions, and dating is an infinite struggle, it gets hard to stay confident in yourself at least in my opinion.

I’m 22 currently and it wasn’t always like that for me though, I used to have good self esteem and confidence. Over time, it has gotten worse as I have had more negative experiences with trying to date and just life in general. I would say around 20 I noticed it starting to affect my self esteem.

So with that all in mind, for those of you who have dealt with similar issues in your early or mid 20s how do you overcome it and continue to think positively of yourself?

I don't know how much that ties into confidence specifically, I'm new to this sub and just need to talk to someone since I'm really overwhelmed. I'm tired of talking to chatgpt pretending it cares, I need human advice. 19M, I had been been quiet and shy my whole childhood but for the past year or so I've learned to leave my comfort zone and become more social. I don't have many friends to hang out with consistently and also don't have any dating history or frequent contact with women. I have a little rule which is to always say yes when someone invites me to go somewhere, even if that someone is already with other people I don't know. This isn't to please people, it's to help expose myself out of my comfort zone and become more social. I think I do a decent job and fitting in and conveying confidence despite my introverted nature, and I really enjoy it too. So one problem I've been encountering is emotional attachement towards people and groups when I have a good time with them, especially when there are girls. I start replaying every moment afterwards and what I should've said or done, and that ties back to me not being bold like other guys who immediately click with girls in such settings

Does anyone else deal with that, or has already dealt with it and "beaten" it? It's really exhausting, I start overthinking about whether or not I did everything I could do and basically ruin the satisfaction. Is the answer really just exposing myself to such social situation as much as possible so as to get used to it? And how do you build up the confidence to integrate a friend group as an outsider and avoid getting marginalized as a "who invited this guy" person?

It took me a while. I am single currently. I have no job. But I have found a sense of wonder looking at myself in the mirror. I am by no means beautiful nor repulsive. I live inside my head alot. I have looked at every part of my body a dozen times. Some things I can fix, some things I cannot. I think everyone should take the time to look at themselves in the mirror for an extended period of time. Look at how you grasp things. Listen to your voice. Someday, something may happen to you. You may lose an eye, an arm, the ability to speak. Would you be able to live with that? If the answer is no then you need to look at yourself again. The only thing you need to love is your mind.

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In real life I think I look okay, but I have noticed that I often look down while talking to people, either to avoid eye contact or because I start panicking about how I am being perceived. I come across as very reserved or unsure, even when I do not mean to.

I also feel like I lack social skills because of past experiences that made me isolate myself and stay at home. I mostly work from home, so I have not really been exposed to many social situations.

I am also very camera shy and video shy. I feel like whenever I pose for photos or videos, they turn out bad, and I worry that people can immediately tell I am nervous just by looking at my face.

For me, confidence feels equal to beauty. I know I have faced a lot of struggles in life, and I consider myself educated and someone who takes risks. But this is one area where I still struggle.

Now I am transitioning into law, and I know being confident is important. I really want to face my fears and not live like this anymore. I want to become a confident woman who can carry herself well.

For people who have improved their confidence or body language, what actually helped you? Are there any practical things I can start doing daily to feel and appear more confident, especially on camera?

I am open to any advice, small habits, or mindset shifts that made a difference for you.

The thing is i just turned 15 last month and my biggest insecurity is my dick size
It has grown to about 8.4 inches i measure it with a measuring tape last month and im confused as i dont know whether it should be this big this early
Can anyone help me?

How do I overcome being turned down so many time's by my peers. I'm really questioning and asking my self if I'm the problem to begin with. No friend of mine wants to hang out with, they don't wanna invite me out, when I ask to borrow something I'm always turned down.

How do I find peace in being all by myself.