I'm working on my confidence and insecurites. I do a lot of eye contact training with people I don't know just to get used to it. Recently I was at a pub and there were some yobbos/ hoons/ hooligans (or just dresiarze >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dres) that were mildly drunk. They were kind of harmless because they sticked with verbal and body language agression only inside their group (especially AMOG). One guy then looked "confrontationally" my way and I kind of locked eye contact with him. I didn't want to break it but I just felt afraid and I didn't know how to deal with him so I broke eye contact and immediately felt like he's of "higher status" eve nthough I consider him way below myself. I'm sure he wouldn't start beating me right there just for looking but he might have been looking for someone to put him in his place for not looking down or something and then finish things outside.

I don't know how to deal with this insecurity. To be realistic I have to say that I don't have high chances in physical confrontation with anyone who is at least a bit athletic (my stamina is limited by my heart) not to mention someone who can fight and I'm at most average height (5''7-8'). I even have pepper spray with me always just in case of being mugged (shit happened to me twice) or attacked (happened too) and from real experience I can actually say that I handle myself in such situations pretty well when it comes to defense or talking myself out of suffering physical damage. I recall myself a story of Mystery being threatened in Belgrad when he didn't back off even because of gun and that's what I'd like to achieve (well maybe not being so hardcore to risk being shot).

So how do I get confident enough to not break eye contact in such situations?