I’m not a fan of the fake it until you me it philosophy.  And I don’t believe that all attraction boils down to confidence.  I see narcissism not as an attractive trait to develop, but as a weak point that leads to long term troubles.

And so I’d be the last person to pump myself up with feel good self affirmations.  I’d rather go the gym, build my business, and work on confidence from the outside in.  Be confident in real things, not be confident about being confident.

And so I was surprised at a big shift in attitude that I had yesterday, when I was out daygaming in Bali, handing out business cards and chatting to hot young girls.

I’ve been in Java for the last 8 months, working with great focus on my business.  I haven’t been going out or meeting new girls.  But I remember that the last time I was in Bali cruising for girls that I was conscious of this feeling of loneliness and hunger whenever I went out.  As if there were a poverty and emptiness inside myself.  This would be there even if minutes before I’d been with one of my four lovers who were with me in the city at the time.

After noticing that I blogged about it.  That made a shift.  Since writing it down that sense of poverty and hunger was not the default and only mode any more.

But yesterday was a whole new level of internal shift.

Lately I’ve been commenting over at Rollo’s blog.  I started out very confrontational, and basically said that all married men deep down want to do what I’m doing with my life, but can’t get it together to do it.

That caused a lot of backlash.  And that led me to clarify my thinking. I had to write it down.

They say that as soon as you state an opinion out loud, that you will have confirmation bias towards that opinion.  It’s not enough to think it, you have to publicly take a stance.

I took a very strong public stance saying that men undervalue their own sexual value to young women.  That we are actually much more sexually interesting to them than we are told, by society and especially by other older women.  I said that it’s perfectly normal and natural for older guys to go after younger women, and guys who thought otherwise were brainwashed and trapped inside cages of their own making.

I went on to detail how my real life is actually lived, when told that I was deluding myself and that young girls in SEA are actually only interested in my money.

I’ve had years and decades worth of excellent reference experiences.  When I’m not living with a very hot young woman that I’m in love with, I have been keeping from two to four girlfriends, for at least 12 years now.  They age from 17 to 26, and might average about 22.  I’ve been doted on hand and foot by many girls, even after they have met each other, and even when I only pay for dinners, and all their friends tell them that I’m too old and ugly and poor.

Even with all these great reference experiences, when I go out to chat up girls on the beach or in the mall or on the street, I FEEL like and old and ugly man.  I don’t FEEL attractive and wanted.  I know that a minority of girls would eventually fall for me, given a chance for me to talk away my ugly face.  But I don’t get IOIs when I go out, I’m invisible, and sometimes I’ll get a scowl.

That changed yesterday.  My reference experiences matched up with the opinion that I publicly argued.

I handed out cards like a boss.  I approached one extremely poised and attractive student who was with her mother, baby sister, and aunt on the beach.  I told her that I had to say hello because she was so beautiful.  We exchanged numbers, and later that night she sent me a goodnight text.  I approached many other girls, and although I was clumsy in my brief sets, I did introduce myself, and felt great while doing it.  That’s kind of a big deal for me.

I did not feel lonely or hungry or wanting.  I did not feel ugly and out of my league.  I felt like a perfectly natural man of value that a girl could very well be interested in, making introductions.  As if it were the fun and social and natural thing to do.

I also saw another gentleman my age working the beach yesterday.  He’d just sit down beside a girl and chat her up.  As if that kind of thing happens all the time.  I also saw some local boys doing the same.  Just showing up next to a  crowd of girls sitting down, saying hi, and sitting down, and starting up convos.

I don’t believe in fake it until you make it.  I want to be truly congruent, and not bulshitting myself.  I don’t want to deny reality in order to function at my peak within it.  Narcissism is a short term benefit and a long term disaster.

But this was not narcissism, and not faking anything.  There were some big inner shifts, and I can pinpoint when they happened, and I know why.

It’s because I wrote down and argued my opinion.  Now I have confirmation bias towards those opinions.  I created my inner reality.  Now my reference experiences and my inner feelings match up.  I not only have several girls and lots of history with girls, but I feel abundance.  I not only have reference experiences of lots of girls liking me, but I feel that random hot girls would like me too.  I not only have decades of dating much younger women as reference experiences that it’s normal, but I feel that it’s perfectly normal to approach girls thirty years younger than me.