What Does It Mean to Be Confident Without Being Cocky?
Knowing the difference can help you build self-esteem without becoming arrogant
I can’t stand cocky people, but I’m highly attracted to confident people.
There seems to be such a fine line between the two, and I’ve always had trouble figuring out exactly where it is.
For the most part, it’s been a gut feeling. Some people just seemed to be in command of themselves and fully comfortable in any surrounding. I found myself drawn to them. Sometimes, I wished they would put the moves on me, though I was way too shy to say or do anything about it.
And then other people just seemed to take it too far. I couldn’t really put my finger on it, but something about their personality, their conduct, or the way they blabbered on made me ill at ease.
Their cockiness was a total turn-off, but I just couldn’t put my finger on just what made them different from the confident people I admired.
I Have Uneasy Feelings About My Own Confidence
I grew up in a household where I was constantly put down and shamed whenever I tried to pull myself up in any way.
That left a lot of marks, but one of the big ones is that I always feel uneasy about my own confidence.
I know there are a few things I’m good at. I’ve got some personality traits that I think are alright. I’m trying to embrace that feeling, but I can’t help but feel like an asshole for thinking that way.
My self-perception is kind of fucked up, so when I feel good about myself or my accomplishments I have a really hard time not reading it as cockiness, arrogance, or vanity.
Not being able to see the difference between good and bad confidence in myself has made confidence really mysterious to me.
Deciding to open myself up to others made this a pretty urgent question. It can be hard enough to spot red flags when you’re looking for a potential partner — not knowing the signs of cockiness or arrogance is just asking for trouble.
I want to be able to rely on more than just my gut feeling (remember to listen to your instincts, though). So, I gave it some thought and parsed out the differences between confident and cocky people. I might have missed a few, but these really seem to capture what makes some people appealing and what makes me want to run away from others.
Can They Back It Up?
The first thing I notice when someone says something that might sound a little braggy, or who act like they’re kind of a big deal, or whatever is whether it’s warranted.
It’s fine to flex once in a while, but only if you’ve actually got the muscle.
You can tell you’re dealing with a cocky person when they keep referring to their success even though they just started whatever project they’re talking about. Or when they carry themselves with swagger but they don’t have the cool to back it up.
When someone knows what they’re good at, it makes for an appealing mix. When they think they’re good at something they’re not, it’s pretty cringey.
I encountered that firsthand on an awkward date (if you call sitting in his front seat a date). He bragged to me that he could make any woman come in five seconds with his fingers. I was young and no one had ever made me come, so instead of wondering why I would want good fingering to be over so quickly, I let him slip his hands into my underwear and have a go.
If he had been able to follow through on that promise, I think I would have found his boast sexy. Instead, he just jabbed at my unaroused G-spot uncomfortably. I faked an orgasm because I just wanted it to stop.
He didn’t seem confident anymore. He seemed overconfident. And that was his last time in my pants.
Do They Elevate Themselves at the Expense of Others?
You know you’re dealing with a cocky person when they don’t know how to elevate themselves without pushing others down.
Confident people can be driven by admiration for others. They know how to give support. And there’s just something inspirational about them — when they rise up, they do it in a way that makes you want to elevate yourself, too.
Cocky people will spend more time comparing themselves to others. Instead of deriving satisfaction from their accomplishments or their good qualities, they want to feel like they’re better than others.
They tend to put people down. They’ll point to other people’s failures to make their successes look bigger. There’s a whiff of jealousy and smugness to them because they don’t want to be better, they want to be better than.
I briefly knew a woman back in my college days who mastered the ability to put people down by bragging. It was just subtle enough that one ever said anything, but obvious enough that everyone would feel at least a little hurt by it.
When one of our classmates said that she and her long-term partner established a weekly date night so they could rekindle the romance, the bragger said “I don’t schedule a date night with my boyfriend because our relationship is so strong. But that sounds like a good idea for you guys.”
That was just one example of a general pattern. She seemed incapable of being secure with herself unless she was bringing someone else down at the same time.
Do They Have Any Tact?
Sometimes, you come across someone who can back it up and who never puts anyone else down and there’s still something that rubs you the wrong way. It might be because they don’t have any tact.
Acknowledging your good qualities is fine. Even a bit of bragging can be alright if it’s in small enough doses. But context matters.
When you feel like someone is going out of their way to tell you about how wealthy they are, how great they are at whatever the fuck, or that they’re pretty good-looking for someone of their age, it just feels out of place.
Because I write about sex, that’s the kind of out-of-place confidence I see the most.
Sometimes, I write about clit sucking or how to give pleasurable penetration and guys will comment to let me know about their technique and how they satisfy their partner.
Cool. But then once in a while it just comes out of nowhere. It’s not related to anything I wrote or, sometimes, I’ll get unsolicited and context-free private messages.
One guy started sending me vaguely romantic, vaguely erotic poems with my name in them. Then he told me he could be my daddy and treat me really nice (clearly unaware of my difficult relationships to daddies). And he capped it all of with descriptions of how good he is at eating pussy.
Even if he was amazing at cunnilingus (kind of doubt it, tbh), why? Why was he telling me this out of the blue?
The only explanation is that he really wanted to show off, and he didn’t seem to understand (or care) that there’s a time and place for that sort of thing (it’s usually not in my DMs). That’s something confident people don’t have a desperate urge to do — they’re not squirming in their seats waiting for the next opportunity to tell someone how amazing they are.
Do They Show a Lot of Humility?
Some of the most confident people I’ve met are also the most humble.
That makes sense. When you’re aware of your skills and abilities, you can also tell where you fall short.
Being confident also doesn’t prevent you from admiring others. There’s always going to be someone else out there who is more compassionate than you, more productive, better at playing the tuba, better at holding a conversation and keeping people interested. If you’re confident, that gives something to aspire you to.
One of the warning signs for a cocky person is that they seem to think they’re good at everything. There’s no positive quality they don’t have in spades and they don’t really seem to think they need to work on anything because they’re already at the pinnacle.
They might be bad at taking advice or bad at listening to others. They might want to sweep their failures or shortcomings under the rug. And if you get close enough to them, you’ll probably notice that they’d sometimes rather spin a story than tell the truth about themselves.
My wedding photographer was this kind of mess. He was awful. His work was really generic and the quality was questionable. But he was cocky enough about it that he managed to convince lots of people in my hometown that he was made of talent.
He added me to social media because that’s where he did business. Then I got to see that photography isn’t the only thing he bragged about, and he didn’t really do much else than brag (and writing pervy comments on women’s boudoir photos).
After my wedding, I got a daily dose of him praising himself and flipping out at anyone who called him into question.
The real highlight was when someone told him he was being a little too cocky. He wrote an angry response that began with “I’m the most humble person I’ve ever known.”
I generally admire photographers, but I unfriended this guy really quickly.
Learning to Be Confident without Shame
Humility’s good. Shame, not so much.
I’m working on being able to feel some confidence in myself, take pride in my accomplishments, and acknowledge that I have at least a few good qualities without hating myself for feeling that way.
Understanding the difference between confidence and cockiness is helping me do that. Now that I’ve worked out the difference for myself, I can remind myself that I haven’t stepped over the line. I can tell that I’m not just being vain or puffing myself up.
Confident people are helping that. Looking up to them is showing me what it means to be feel good about yourself in a healthy way. I’m trying to turn that admiration into inspiration, so that maybe someday I can feel that way too — without shame.
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