Confidence is NOT key and wishful thinking won't turn you into an alpha.

I hope that this doesn't come off as concern trolling, but I've noticed lately that a large portion of the subreddit seems to have become enamored with seddit-type "Confidence is key!" platitudes and preaching pick-up artistry and game above all else, even claiming that looks don't matter at all as long as you have those.

Guys, respectfully, nothing could be further from the truth.

Confidence and game are important and you absolutely should work on both of these things.

But confidence and game alone won't ever turn you into an alpha. They won't even really raise your sexual market value more than a blip.

Ask yourself, who's got the higher sexual market value: A short, skinny guy with a shitty job who happens to be funny as fuck and have great game? Or a good-looking doctor with the personality of a sheet of plywood? Which one do you think is going to land the better wife, assuming they both have good sense? You know the sad answer to that.

Game and confidence don't raise your sexual market value. They just mask it the same way women do with make-up and push-up bras.

It's been bothering me lately wondering why there's been this flux of people pushing the "Confidence is key!" thing and preaching game and pick-up like it's holy writ and all you need, because that's just not true. I think I finally figured out today why that's getting latched onto, though.

Everybody wants an easy solution. I'm over 40 now, but I was a horribly scrawny (but tall, thank God) kid until my early twenties. Women wouldn't even look me in the eye when I talked to them. Men didn't respect me. I'm sure there's lots of young guys here who can relate to that.

So some of you, you come here, and you find out how shit with women really works and how everything you've been doing most of your life was wrong. You learn about not giving a fuck and game and shit tests and it seems so easy. All you have to do is change your state of mind, stop putting women on the pedestal, and voila. Who's not capable of those simple steps? It sounds so easy, like a magic cure. Who wouldn't want that? I would've wanted it when I was young.

Guys, if it was that fucking easy, everybody would do it. But that shit alone won't turn you into some kind of pussy magnet, won't turn you into some kind of certifiable alpha male, and it won't raise your sexual market value more than a dribble. It's a band-aid.

So what, if genetics didn't bless you, are you just fucked? If you're 5'2" and scrawny, are you doomed to a life of low sexual market value and just fighting the uphill battle of gaming girls into one night stands?

No, but actually raising your sexual market value takes actual fucking work. Not wishful thinking and changing your state of mind and platitudes.

It means getting your ass to the gym and working, stuffing your face if you're scrawny or dieting if you're fat, until you look like you can tear other men limb from limb and women get tingles at the sight of your muscles. It means dressing better and taking some fucking pride in your appearance. It means getting yourself into a good career and becoming financially secure.

And guess what? You do all that--you shed the blood and tears it takes to actually do all that and truly raise your sexual market value--and you'll end up full of confidence and good game anyway. It comes right along with it.

I'm not talking out of my ass here. Like I said, I was scrawny 140 lb. beanpole that women found invisible when I was young. I was funny and charming and confident and I got laid whenever I wanted, but when I walked in a room nobody looked at me. I had to fucking work for it--because I was masking my shitty sexual market value and faking it.

So, I hit the gym, stuffed my face till I wanted to puke every day, and bulked up. I got my career on track. It took years to get where I wanted, but once I did, it was like a night and day difference. Women noticed me when I entered a room. Men listened to me. There was no more vague flicker of disappointment when a woman asked what I did for a living. I didn't have to spend an hour or two talking a woman into fucking me because it was evident now within five minutes of meeting me that I was actually a quality guy. Things were just plain fucking easier.

This is how you do it, fellas. If you think you can rely on nothing but game and confidence, you're wrong, unless your only goal in life is to bed the occasional bar rat. And even then, you're working way harder than you need to be and not pulling near the quality of women you could be.

Take the hard road, drop the platitudes, and actually improve yourself and you will be rewarded a hundredfold for your efforts.

Edit to add: Well well well, I went from pretty well upvoted to downvoted hard. Guess I rustled the jimmies of the "confidence is the only thing that matters" crowd.

Believe what you want, then, fellas. If you want to believe you can click your heels three times, act confident with absolutely zero real value to back it up, and that'll make you just as desirable to women as someone who actually worked to better themself, you go right ahead. It's total bullshit, of course, but hey--even men gotta hamster sometimes, right? Hard work is just too hard.

Edit again to add: Man, I am pretty surprised at the amount of angry dissent in here. And for what? Suggesting that bettering yourself and acquiring real confidence through your value is a better strategy than faking it and hoping the chick overlooks that you're a physically unattractive loser long enough to fuck you? Seriously, this is what passes for a controversial statement around here now?

Remember back when this subreddit started, and people worried that all the influx of new users might eventually water down things to a more politically correct and/or feel-good seddit type deal? I think that ship might have sailed.

One more thought. Some of you guys keep insistently claiming a small skinny male with no resources but who is confident will trump a big intimidating but dull guy. Well, our sexual preferences are hardwired into us from our ancient past. For men, we look for beauty because beauty was a sign of a physically healthy woman who'd be able to survive childbirth and rearing. For women, it was the male's status among the group, whether he was strong enough to physically protect her, if he had resources. But according to you guys, when we had barely stopped dragging our knuckles, an ancient woman would've picked a small, physically un-intimidating male with no status in the group and no resources who happens to be confident over a big, scary-looking dull guy who's sitting on the biggest pile of bananas.

You are fucking delusional if you believe that crap. Yes, women use confidence as one of many indicators of whether a man is the type of alpha guy I described above. But that doesn't make them completely fucking stupid. They are actually capable of using their eyeballs and seeing that you have jack shit going for you that they want. In fact, they're pretty fucking good at that.

Whatever. This thread is action packed with male hamstering.

Edit one last time: I just can't stop looking in amazement at how pissed some of you have gotten at this. I mean, the tl;dr of my thread could literally be: "Confidence is important, but it's more important to better yourself and gain real value so you have something to back that shit up and not just project it based on nothing." How is that in any way a controversial statement?

But man oh man, some of you guys are disappointingly committed to not doing a goddamn thing to better yourselves because, hey, your fat friend Steve who's confident gets plenty of ass so why shoot for more?

Cause when you use your sick PUA skills and bring home that HB9 from the bar to your roach motel apartment and she sees your Subway uniform hanging on your futon, she's not going to lose one iota of attraction because you got that shit locked down with your confidence and your badass super-game. No sir, not one iota. Confidence is key, right? Right.