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How to be more confident around guys?
So in elementary school (my school was kindergarten to grade 8) I had a good balance between guy friends and girl friends. Everything was fine but then high school started and everything changed. I started getting anxiety and of course being a teenager I became more self-conscious of my self and ended up having no guy friends and only girl friends. Basically I remember the first week of high school I overheard these group of grade 12 guys saying they were going to approach the ugliest girls in school and call them pretty then basically talk bad about them behind their backs. I thought it couldn't happen to me, cause I'm a nobody but of course while I was walking they came up to me and I shut it down and said "you guys said that to the last five girls before me" then they called me ugly for calling them out. Of course that affected my self-esteem another thing that affected my self-esteem was how the popular boys kind of treated me indirectly, so one time in grade 11 I was minding my own business talking to my friends and one of the popular boys saw me and overheard my convo and was like "she's sooo beat" which is slang for ugly, I brushed it off though. Another thing was this guy had a crush on my friend so his friend made a joke and said if things don't work out with my friend he can go for me, the guy was so disgusted and the whole class started laughing. Lastly all throughout high school when boys would come up to approach my friend they don't acknowledge my existence at all. So basically my high school experience kind of affected my confidence, i didn't end up making any guy friends because of how superficial the boys in my school were and now that I'm in university it's so hard for me to even talk to a boy because of my anxiety and me thinking about if he's judging me based on my looks like all the guys in my high school did. As you can see I've never had a boyfriend either and I'd like to finally change that in my second year of university but because I have no confidence in my self, never had any guy friends to blossom the friendship into a relationship I'm kind of stuck. If you have any tips on how to be more confident or your opinions on my situation please let me know it would be appreciated. Background on me is that I'm an 18 year old female, in high school I didn't wear any make up but now I'm trying to get into it to enhance my features but I do have a baby face which sucks. I'm not overweight or anything but I'm curvy but wear baggy clothes because I don't want to be approached based on my body shape if you know what I mean
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Comments and experiences at the stages of our lives you are talking about can indeed have long lasting and severe effects on our self-image and self-esteem. And they are common too, youngsters are not well-known for restraint or compassion. And their choice of targets is either totally indiscriminate, or alternatively carefully chosen to produce best results. The girl is nominated to be 'the ugly one' not because she is ugly. She is chosen because they kind of sense that she's the one who will be hurt most by being CALLED ugly. And thus give them the most sport. Later we come to realise some important facts. One of them being that nobody can wind you up unless you give them the key first. Nobody humiliates you without your permission. Think about it. By taking the bait and giving them the intended reaction we tacitly give them permission to bait us. Words and analysis will only go so far in undoing the 'damage' your experiences caused. Hope 'damage' doesn't sound too dramatic? The anxieties come to reside mainly in subconscious areas of our brain and thus beyond verbal discourse. They're best addressed by actions, and in my opinion you've hit on just the right course of action on your own. It's in the end of your question. Building up that self-image. Identifying your strengths, which you build on. And the areas which are not-so strong and need some thinking and working on. Basically, what is this doing? It's posting a clear and self-determined 'positive' to match and cancel out each of those 'negatives' you've still got preying on your confidence. You'll get there, I'm sure. They don't have to neatly and perfectly cancel either. Hey! Post some 'positive-plus' and even 'positive-plus-plus' stuff if you're willing to put the extra effort in. Then their attempts to knock you down in the past will actually have been responsible for a brighter and stronger 'you' than would have been the case otherwise. How's that for getting even? Even-plus, I'd say! Keep plugging away, you're on the right path here.
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