I've been encountering a number of people asking me how to become more confident, and I always tell them the same thing: confidence is a side effect. In my experience, one cannot work on being confident directly - it's not something that can be achieved by just intelectualizing about it. It works just like happiness: you must approach it in an indirect manner.

Confidence is a byproduct of setting goals, working towards them, and successfully achieving them. When you become confident, you can act in spite of fear. It allows you to do things with ease, when other people perceive them to be difficult. It is a result of overcoming adversity, and once you become confident in one particular subject/setting/whatever, it tends manifest in every area of your life.

Conquering goals can be a great way to develop into a confident man that gets pussy (this is the whole idea behind /r/becomeaman), but I believe there is a faster route to go about building confidence by tapping directly into your animal core: masculine aggression.

When was the last time you dealt with stress, frustration, or anger by fully expressing in a physical way (like you always wanted to)? In our society, this is something that is frowned upon, so most people are suppressing their anger/frustration deep down and play nice. I urge you to STOP sedating yourselves. I'm not saying to go commit a crime. Instead you should channel your aggression by training in full contact martial arts. If you have never done any kind of combat training in your life, you owe it to yourself to go to a local martial arts gym and ask for a free trial session (I believe most gyms will do this), then blast the fuck out of some pads.

Fighting is perhaps the ultimate expression of masculinity and male confidence, but unfortunately it is becoming a tabboo in the Western world. Years ago, when I was living in (Eastern) Europe, if two people had a problem with each other, they'd exchange a couple of punches, and that was it. This was the norm, it wasn't a big deal. Boys were boys, and I guarrantee that these old colleagues turn out a whole lot manlier on average than in Western countries. In the U.S. society has so many rules to prevent fighting, that people just bottle up their aggression until they start blowing shit up and shooting people! But that's a different topic...

My point is, martial arts training awakened this switch inside me that I haven't felt in years. It's masculine power just waiting to be harnessed. It helped me bring my confidence to the next level, and I became even more able to face my fears. But don't listen to me trying to convince you, GO DO IT so you can experience what I'm talking about. Most gyms offer a trial session, and some university gyms may offer these classes for free if you are a student. You have no excuses.

As for recommendations, I like the practical arts with street/life applications - a great one to learn is Krav Maga. It's very physically demanding, and a great complement to your weightlifting - you do lift, right? So stop working on faking confidence and go become a fucking warrior. Frustrated about ten rejections in a row? Go elbow some pads. The confidence will come.