Make yourself comfortable and let’s talk about men.
You know that muscular guy in the gym, who spends so much time lifting weights you don’t know how he manages to hold down a full-time job? Or that guy at the bar with the perfectly quaffed hair, who dresses like a GQ model and constantly has that narrow-eyed James Bond look on his face? Or the guy in the Wall Street business suit, who shouts too loudly on his phone because he thinks he’s a modern-day Gordon Gecko?
Do these guys ever intimidate you? Because they shouldn’t.
Look, I know men can be brash and arrogant. Some men just love the sound of their own voice, or being the loudest, most obnoxious person in the room. But don’t mistake all of this posturing for confidence.
I’ve noticed a recurring mindset from my coaching: Most women completely over-estimate the confidence of men.
All of those guys above have insecurities. And even though some men of course are genuinely confident, and maybe even over-confident, we have to be careful of assuming that all guys have the same high opinion of themselves.
Because truthfully, they don’t.
Ask 95% of men to approach a woman and ask for her phone number, and they’ll sweat nervously at the very suggestion. They’ll wonder “what should I say?” “what if her friends laugh at me?” “what if she tells me to go away?”
These things all run through guys heads. Because we men are desperate to be accepted by you women.
I used to joke on my early seminars that if women ever realised the power they truly have over us men, we would be doomed as a gender. And I still mean it.
Men’s self-esteem is so wrapped up in their ability to attract women it’s crazy. It’s why guys lie and brag to their buddies about how many women they’ve slept with. It’s a way of trying to fit in, to be accepted, to be VALIDATED AS A MAN!
Look, I know men and women aren’t totally different species. We are all insecure at times and we all want to be accepted. But male acceptance is heavily built on being attractive to the opposite sex. This is why rejection for a man is so damn painful. Being shot down by a woman is the one thing that can destroy his masculinity.
So what you’ll often find is those loud guys who try and over-compensate by being cocky or too-cool-for-school, do so so that he can feel superior to women….because he’s scared of their power over him.
Unfortunately there’s a real downside to the way that so many women are completely over-estimating male confidence: it’s killing their chances of meeting great guys!
The problem is, women see the few loudest guys in the room, and they assume that all guys are the same. And then they forget about all those great guys in the background that they could have met.
When women over-estimate male confidence it can lead to two responses:
Either…
(a) She tries to be cold and aloof, or combat all that male posturing by playing super hard-to-get. She’ll repel his approaches, be cold towards his jokes, or try to be overly-aggressive so that she can combat his ego.
The problem is, there are only a tiny handful of guys who can take that kind of pressure. Meanwhile, all the great guys who would have spoken to this woman are completely intimidated by her coldness or aggressiveness
Or…
(b) She becomes timid and intimidated, and decides that she’ll simply avoid men altogether.
And as you can guess, both responses don’t work. What we need are some changes in our mindset…
1) Never judge all men based on the loudest guy in the room
Loud guys are desperate for attention and have all kinds of insecurities. Make sure you don’t extrapolate facts about all men on those few guys (imagine if men judged all women based on a few glammed-up, vacuous party girls he sees in nightclubs every week!).
2) Careful about icy exterior
It’s losing you guys and you don’t even know about. Guys who would approach a woman if she was warm and open enough, but are terrified of the ice-queen look.
3) Make men part of your social group
If you want men to seem less alien, start hanging around with more men. Get to know their hang-ups and insecurities; you’ll be amazed at how even great looking guys melt when they see the women they want to approach.
Till next time,
Matthew
Wow,
This definitely sounds a lot like me. I’ve come to realize recently the reason I can’t be outgoing and comfortable around men I’ve just met is because men intimidate me. On top of that I tend to put up a wall with anyone I may be interested in because I automatically think they’re probably not going to be interested in me anyway. It’s really a shame though, I’ve got multiple things working against me and I know it. I just need to find the courage to change those things, and work on being more confident. I think I’ll start of with trying to befriend more guys. I just got a new job where about 75% of my coworkers are male, so maybe this will help me feel more comfortable being social with guys.
There’s a muscular guy at my gym and I’m completely head over heels with him. He makes me get those butterflies and well I shut myself down because he is so in shape and I’m average not skinny.
I do feel intimidated but there is a lot of proximity for about a week now and he hasn’t tried talking to me yet but I’m guessing he might be crushing on me too otherwise it would be easy for him and I to hold eye contact for longer than 2 seconds right?
When I work out he seems to drift closer, if I move to one side of the gym, he moves towards me, I moved more than 4xs and after he’d finish his sets he’d move to a machine a couple feet away. We make eye contact all the time and I blush every now and then. The tension is killing me, maybe he is a good guy though his appearance is intimidating a girl tried going up to him and he politely turned her away and kept his attention on me afterwards.
WHY IS HE SO CHICKEN TO COME OVER?
I worked out alone and so did he today and even though it looked like he wanted to come over seemed to be debating it as he would face me, turn around and face me again. He never did finally I felt let down and joined my sister in her workout with her Fiancee.
I’m a special girl with alot to offer a guy. I really feel something special with this guy even though we dont even know each others first names.
IT’S BEEN LIKE THIS FOR 3 ON-GOING WEEKS, AM I JUST BEING IMPATIENT?
Hello, I am in the same situation as you. He is a lot younger than me. I thought he was 29, but he’s actually 22. It’s bad because I turn 33 in 2 days. He is in sales and a personal trainer at my gym. The first night when he signed me up he asked me if I was in a relationship/ I thought that was funny because he must have thought I was in my 20s. People do say I can pass for 28. He’s tall has facial hair which makes his face appear older. Anyways for the first 2 months I would go over and make small talk with him. Now since I stopped making small talk I say hi and goodbye to him. I feel tension because I sometimes don’t get a friendly greeting from him when I walk into the gym. I sometimes never say goodbye when he’s at the front desk. i always say hello though. Last Sunday he walked by me when he was talking to someone. He did not look at me to say hi, I said nothing. Later in the day I saw him glancing over at me. I left and didn’t look at him or say bye. It makes me mad when he ignores me so I do it right back!! Keep in mind I did nothing wrong. So 3 weeks ago I Saw him in starbucks talking to a super skinny girl. I think he saw me but did not expect him to day hello to me. I was a little hurt he didn’t say hi, but he could have been on a date with her. Since then we never mentioned that we saw each other at starbucks. I refuse to bring it up. Anways when I go to the gym I never know how he will be. He runs hot and cold with me. With my other friend he is always the same and friendly. All I can say is that its a really weird feeling when I walk into the gym. There is tension especially on my end.
I would wait for him to come over. I am so shy to approach the guys at my gym. Worst thing I do is guess their age and they are always younger than I think I am so bad at guessing ages!
Hmmm. Ive deffo always had problems with feeling intimidated by guys. 8v3 never been in a relationship because everytime I like a guy I automatically switch on to defense mode because im sooo scared of rejection :( especially if a guy is interested in me I tend to back away because im scared I wont meet up to his expectations… is this normal. I just want to be able to naturally talk to a guy I like.
Oh gosh, who would have thought of this? I did both of those responses without even meaning it in the first place! Thank you so much for pointing it out, Matthew. I think this really zero-in on my trouble with meeting guys.
Excellent article. I will be going through some of these issues as well..
Dear Matt,
Okay, here’s my problem. I’ve had exactly the opposite issue with guys. I like guys a lot. Not in a sexual way — I just am very laid back and often analytical so I usually get along better with men than women. But I’ve found that men regularly mistake attention or affection for attraction or even sexual aggression and often have really, really weird reactions to thinking I’m attracted to them. And since most of the time I’m not attracted to them at all, this is pretty confusing for me.
To give you an example, just the other day at work I was laughing and joking around with a male co-worker who I happen to like a lot but in a completely platonic way. He also happens to be very, very obviously gay. We’ve had more than one conversation about the kinds of guys we each like. So, during this last conversation, I asked him if he was single. And, his immediate response? “Oh, I’m gay!”. This was one of those WTF moments I have so often with guys. He genuinely thought I was hitting on him. I mean, this guy is in his mid-twenties, but still. What in the world would make him think after all the other conversations we’ve had that I’m hitting on him and especially in such a blatant, masculine manner? I just would never hit on a guy like that even if I was attracted to him and thought he was straight.
To give you another example that I still find completely unfathomable, a couple of years ago there was a guy at work who I actually was initially genuinely attracted to. I thought he was a kind, principled, intelligent man who might be a good person to have in my life. I heard him talking in the break room a couple of times with other co-workers about how all of his clothes were too small because of the new crossfit work out he was doing so I teased him a couple of times about his shirt maybe being too small. I later found out from someone else that he took my comments as a sexual come-on and thought I was propositioning him. This is a grown man in his thirties! I might have been attracted to him but I didn’t suddenly turn into a creepy old man. What grown man thinks a woman works like that?
These are just two of many, many experiences I’ve had where men have taken something I’ve said and turned it into something that it absolutely was not. To me, this is all about arrogance, conceit, and thinking the world revolves around them. I’d love to get your thoughts on this and what it is I’m doing wrong. I sometimes feel like I can’t be friendly with a guy or tease him without him making it super weird or creepy. I really think sometimes that men are just broken in some way, and that makes me really sad to contemplate.
Best,
Shannon
You contradict yourself, telling women to be high value and respect themselves and men and then making out there is some secret formula to make someone fall for you and to pay $200 for the privilege.