Most of my life I had no confidence. Whenever I would reach out to people, they'd reject me and I'd take that as validation of my self-perception that I was socially inept. My confidence was further broken - but I embraced this because I was a validation-seeker at that time, and even negative validation of my own self-perception was still validation all the same. This happened in my marriage over years as I would initiate with my wife. Rejection after rejection broke my confidence that I would ever succeed, until I eventually gave up and welcomed a long dead bedroom.

Fast-forward a couple years. Shortly before finding the red pill, I started working out initiating sex again, expecting that because of some of my peripheral improvements I should see a changed response from my wife. I didn't. This was a covert contract: "I improve myself, she responds sexually." But I hadn't really improved myself. Sure, my physique got better from the tub of lard I'd been, but what I thought were improvements to my frame were actually hollow projections of what I had not yet become. What I thought were confident initiations due to my external behavior was really an internal way of dabbing my toes in the water. It was feigned confidence. Because I was merely playing games at confidence, when it didn't work I took that as further validation of my being a sexual failure.

After swallowing the pill, I realized a subconscious shift in my interpretation of rejection.

  • Before: Frequent initiation and rejection validated my perception that I was a failure, killing my confidence.

  • After: Frequent initiation and rejection immunized me from the pain of rejection, improving my confidence.

  • Now: Confidence is authentic, rejection is rare.

I had given up on initiating sex with my wife for a year and a half at one point - all due to the pain of rejection. When that pain had become severe enough, I developed a natural DNGAF attitude. I had hit rock-bottom so hard that her rejection no longer mattered to me. It was another drop in the ocean. When I started getting affirmation again, there was a brief temptation to salivate at the carrot dangled in front of me, hoping not to get the stick again ... but the next rejection quickly reminded me that I couldn't trust my wife with my emotions any more than I would trust a teenager with my financial portfolio. It's a bad investment.


Here's where I screwed up: more recently, I've stopped initiating. I didn't feel like I had to. After all, she was doing most of the initiation for a while anyway. So, after a couple weeks, I caught myself asking: "Why isn't she initiating like she used to?" Now, I start rationalizing that it's because she worked over 90 hours last week due to a busy-season deadline. Probably some truth there. But there were also openings I didn't take. At the end of the day, the answer to my question was simple: Because she's a woman. Women are primarily sexually responsive. I had stopped giving her anything to respond to.

What's more interesting is the small voice in the back of my head that used to be a dominant air-horn, now whispering: "She just worked 17 hours today. If you initiate, you'll get rejected, so it's pointless to initiate." Tell that voice to screw off. I stopped initiating, my anti-confident thoughts started returning.

In reality: so what if she rejects me due to her 17 hour work-day? First, maybe some sexual release would be good for her to relieve the stress - but even that is still in her frame. Better just to initiate and either (1) end up having hot stress-relief sex (is that a thing?), or (2) get rejected, making it clear to my subconscious that it's pointless to try taking away my confidence because rejection is not a fear that cripples my confidence, but an invitation that bolsters it.


Axiom: If you develop confidence through successes, your confidence only lasts while you are successful. If you develop it by immunizing yourself against failure, the confidence can never be broken.