So much of our lives are shaped by how we carry ourselves — our self-confidence, if you will. Yet I have come to believe that confidence is actually an indicator of:

a) the ability to convince people you have confidence when, in fact, you don’t, or

b) severe narcissism and a delusional belief in one’s self.

As luck would have it, I once befriended a co-worker, with whom I shared some musical interests, who fell very much into “column B.” He was a guitarist who fancied himself a singer/songwriter and, while his songs were pleasant enough, he had an uncanny knack for writing tunes that keenly captured the essence of songs that already existed. When he played a show and a girl came up afterwards and said that one of his songs sounded like something she’d heard on the radio, but she couldn’t remember what, he took it as a supreme compliment.

I had never met a guy who took such shameless pleasure in talking about himself. At first, I just thought it was because we shared an office and quickly ran out of other things to talk about, but when we ventured out for a night on the town at one of L.A.’s many hotspots where aspiring (and expiring) actresses gather, the night would invariably go a little like so:

He’d spot a couple tramp stamps, wander over, introduce himself, and then challenge the women to get a word in edge-wise over the next couple hours before escorting one “lucky lady” back to his place. (more…)