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That is literally what real confidence is. Confidence in yourself is knowing that even if things aren't guaranteed to work out, you believe that ultimately you'll still be OK. Even if it's slightly delusional, thinking like this will take you to better places than pure pessimism will. Socially this is certainly the case. People who are optimistic beyond all rationality are generally more enjoyable to be around than people who are dreary and pessimistic. This is an evolutionary trait, the people who were always negative about everything will drag the group down, and so they tend to get excluded more. It's pretty hard to be 100% or even close to 100% confident about anything worth doing in life. All the good shit involves a lot of uncertainty and risk. People who know how to manage risk and uncertainty tend to be much more successful. Of course not. But you don't really know what is and isn't surmountable.

"I might try and fail, so there's no point in trying at all" I'm sorry to be a bit rude, but this is such a terrible mindset. If people think you're a loser, this kind of thinking is probably why. Not your genetics or anything else you blame. Primarily it means you're more capable of dealing with problems and setbacks in any endeavours you take on in life. If you have experienced lots of challenge in your life and always managed to come out on top, then you are far more confident with yourself when dealing with future challenges. If you try to remove all challenge from your life to make it as easy as possible then the part of your brain that knows how to deal with difficulty basically atrophies, and you become a husk of a human.

I did the same as you in my first relationship. I ended up with her for 3 years, and it basically set my social development back 3 years while I was in university. I should have been partying, meeting lots of people, and having the time of my life, but instead I was sitting at home watching Netflix with someone who I felt kinda 'meh' towards, but who I stayed with out of insecurity. I would not recommend this path for you.

Humans are not so simple and rigid that we are either hard or soft, masculine or feminine. We have a complex set of traits that change depending on our surroundings. The same person can be very masculine in some scenarios and very feminine in others. Part of being a balanced person is knowing in which scenarios masculine energy is most useful and in which feminine energy is most useful. People who are too masculine apply masculine energy to every situation, even where it's not appropriate, and this causes a lot of hurt for them. Same for femininity. Balanced people know when to be masculine and when to be feminine. They aren't mutually exclusive traits. All the shitty manosphere role models talk and think in this binary way, whereby you must be masculine or you are a pussy bitch. And that should tell you something about them. It is pure fragility of ego. Healthy male role models have a balance of masculinity and femininity, because a balance is what you are aiming for in most of life. You're not aiming to become hyper-masculine at the expense of femininity.

It's not being 'too feminine' that's the issue for most men, it's a lack of healthy masculinity. It's an important difference. Masculinity and femininity are not on a spectrum whereby the more feminine you become, the less masculine you are. Having feminine traits can actually get you laid like crazy btw. Some of the sensitive guys I've met are fucking animals because they know how to connect with women so well.

I mean the first one that comes to mind for me is that most women can't safely walk around on their own in many places after dark. In general sexual assault is a massive problem women face. They're also taken less seriously in most business/work contexts. Much of the effort of household labour is also placed upon them, even when they're working full time. There are plenty more, but it can be summarised quite nicely as: Women are viewed as precious objects, while men are viewed as disposable agents. Men enjoy the privileges of agency and women enjoy the privileges of being seen as valuable by default. But men also suffer from being treated as disposable unless they prove their worth, and women suffer from being treated almost as though they are children, with no independent thought or competency. Neither side is very aware of the drawbacks the other faces, they only see what the other gender has that they don't. This is the dynamic that causes almost all gender wars.

You're painting a very rosy picture of what life is like for women, but they have their own set of challenges that you aren't super aware of. The grass always looks greener on the other side.

I'd say go for it. Life is too short to worry about stuff like this. If it sucks and you hate it you can always move back, but if you never move you may regret it for the rest of your life.

If you trauma dump on someone that's obviously not attractive, but it doesn't mean you're not allowed to be vulnerable as a guy. Showing a certain amount of humanity can be wildly attractive. Most women know that showing vulnerability is often stigmatised for guys, so if you find an elegant way to do it then it can come off as extremely confident. Talking about struggles with social anxiety and how I overcame it is weirdly one of the things that has worked really well for me, which goes against most traditional pickup advice. --- I'm not really sure what to make of the lady in the post, I get the sense she's twisting the truth a little for the sake of the story. It's hard to tell. I'm also not even really sure what her point is to be honest. It feels like she's trying to make a broader point about men in order to shift any responsibility off herself, but can't work out exactly what that point is. Her point about guys not asking questions is not a gendered thing. I've got plenty of experience of women doing the same. Some people just don't really ask questions, it annoys me too and so I agree with her on that point. I also know that there are plenty of guys who do ask questions on dates, so if she's not finding them I'm inclined to believe she has to take some of the blame for that.

It is kinda needy in a sense, but you need to reframe it in your mind. You're not moving somewhere to get laid, you're moving somewhere with better prospects to build an amazing life for yourself.

Just watch his most popular videos on YT. They’re all veryyyy manipulative and very subtly but potently pushing you towards giving him money. I don’t doubt he makes some good points, but overall I very much agree with you about Owen. Idk about the other RSD dudes as I haven’t seen any

Be sociable, be interesting, don't be too much of an asshole, don't be too nice/meek, learn to escalate from friendly talk to flirting.

I had a cool experience in a recent trip where it felt like I could acutely experience masculine versus feminine energy inside me through tensing muscles vs relaxing muscles. If you tense all of your muscles as hard as you can right now, that's a fundamental expression of masculine energy. If you totally relax your muscles as much as you can, that's a fundamental expression of feminine energy. This also applies to focusing mind vs relaxing mind. You can transfer this to spirituality as well. Masculine forms of meditation usually involve focusing hard + contemplating while feminine forms of meditation are more about totally relaxing your mind and letting it wander. Neither is better than the other, they're just different approaches. I think the most fundamental insight here was something like "masculine = spending energy, feminine = conserving energy". I don't know if conserving is the right word exactly, but hopefully it's clear what I'm getting at.

I put 100-1000 because that’s probably how many women I’ve talked to with some flirty intent. But most of them weren’t really cold approaches. Mostly it was random girls I kinda just bumped into and started chatting to while in sociable places. Idk if that counts as a cold approach

Everywhere has pros and cons, but ultimately any big European city will have pretty good options for dating and partying. For example, Scandinavian countries have exceptionally pretty people but they’re also much more introverted on the whole and don’t tend to mingle as much as other countries. That can make it really hard to make friends or flirt with people. They’re also really expensive. I was in Germany recently and I really loved the vibe there, I found it pretty easy to meet people too, so I guess if I had to recommend a country I’d say that.