After lurking here quite a bit, and hearing about certain books, I figure to finally spend some bucks.

I keep hearing about Models, but The Art of Seduction sounds appealing to me. I don't know too much about either, but my goal is to find a book which helps me be more of a leader. Here are my reasons:

1)Usually when with friends, no one wants to make the call on decisions, so they leave it up to me. I do make the choice, but I choose what the others want but don't want to make the decision themselves. In that situation, I want to suggest exactly what I want, without sounding like a pushy asshole.

2) I avoid confrontation. It sounds like a good thing, but I ignore speaking my mind, and then later when alone it eats away at me that I didn't say anything. Again, I don't want to be an ass and be rude, but I want to be better at expressing how I feel in a nice way. Example: with my aforementioned friends, there is one who I care about a lot, but he always tries to call me out on stuff, even though he is the one to blame, he misunderstood something and is calling me out tho the problem is him misunderstanding, etc. I try to immediately passify the situation, and move on but it later eats away at me that I didn't defend myself. I want to defend myself without being a jerk and ruining a friendship I've had for almost 20 years.

3) in job/school situations, I do my work and that's it. I don't make connections with my profs, I just do my best work, get an A, and that's it. If I got on friendlier terms with the profs, I'm sure I'd get better recommendation letters. I just qork like a mindless cog in a machine.

4) of course, I also want to improve my interaction with the other sex. I overthink things, get cold feet, etc. Sometimes it works out, but I've practically given a girl I'm into to another guy so many times.

I think overall, I need something to teach me to stand up for myself without being mean, a bad person, and driving others away. With that said, what book would help me the most with this? I can't afford to spend a fortune on many more books, I already have a shelf of books in my queue to read (gotta love literature) and my STEM career takes a lot of time as it is.

Tldr; need something to teach me to stand up for myself more, but in a nice and friendly way without being a prick.