Comments on: Confidence vs. Arrogance

By: Sarah

Sarah — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 02:54:45 +0000

Confidence — real confidence is beautiful and extremely attractive as well as genuine.

Arrogance — can be fun/silly and amusing — but for long term… it’s extremely wearing and tiring.

It’s rare to come across true confidence these days… too many people are not interested in being who they really are (liking themselves) — they either mimic others or limit themselves.

Arrogance is cheap/easy to come by. Anyone can be arrogant. And I do believe it’s a great way to hide various insecurities as well as pain. It’s a distraction. Like the magician… look over here not at what is really going on
Being playful/silly can happen without being arrogant.

By: Laura

Laura — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 23:58:22 +0000

I’ll try to keep this short. When you meet a guy who is cocky and arrogant it is attractive, but only at first. As long as you don’t want a relationship it works. However if a guy is looking for someone to have a relationship confidence is good, and arrogance is bad. There is a very fine line between the two and many shades of gray, but it’s simple once you get the girl with your cocky ways, put it away and be yourself.

By: Karatos

Karatos — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 07:21:02 +0000

By definition arrogance is a “display” of importance or superiority. or an overbearing sense of pride. Confidence is more or less just a sense of believing in yourself. It relates to assurance, which is similar to security. When you’re confident in something, you believe in it, when your confident of yourself, you believe in yourself.
I’m normally a reserved person around people I don’t know, (unless im drunk then I’m friends with everyone by the end of the night hahah) The only time I notice that I’m really arrogant is in a fight. I will walk away from 99% of fights but some is unavoidable. I don’t act arrogant on purpose, I don’t even notice my behavior until afterwards. Then I think to myself “wow.. I was acting like a cocky bastard.” For instance, scoring a knockdown and then walking away casually. Or leaving my guard down and raising my chin when the round already started. Now that is definitely arrogant, yet I’m not insecure about my skill at all. so I don’t think arrogance has to necessarily deal with insecurity. I suppose another word I would associate with arrogance is “overconfidence.” If I was to relate it to the art of war, I would say that to know your own capabilities and those of your opponent, is to be confident. Even if you are confident that you will lose, you are still confident. On the other hand to over estimate yourself, or underestimate your opponent is to be arrogant…Even if you are that much more powerful than you’re opponent. Seems odd to be writing any of this here, but just consider it another point of view. Love and war is not so different right? it’s all F***ed up and usually someone ends up getting shafted. (good and bad I suppose)

By: SK

SK — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 13:20:42 +0000

Arrogance often (if not always) involves approval seeking. Confidence never does.

By: Ian

Ian — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 17:46:27 +0000

From previous comments I gather that the difference between arrogance and confidence, lies in accepting knowledge of one’s self.
An arrogant person either knows and doesn’t accept themselves, or doesn’t know themselves to begin with.
A confident person both knows themselves and accepts themselves.
Knowledge of self is a necessary condition for confidence, but is not sufficient, whereas acceptance is also necessary and insufficient. It is the combination of knowledge of self and the acceptance of self that generates confidence, anything else simply doesn’t achieve what appears to be the desired goal of confidence, whether quiet or boisterous.
Addressing these two parts, acceptance seems to be the more readily remedied problem. One merely must accept their limitations, and at the same time embrace their strengths; allow themselves to shine, from the quite above.
However, this dichotomy leads to a considerable conundrum, and returns to the deepest question of humanity, how does one know oneself. It appears that knowing oneself, strengths and weaknesses, with a brutal honesty is the key to confidence, and following that a better life.
I struggle with this because I cannot appreciate those skills I have, I know I’m smarter than the average bear, yet how do I compare to the smartest of bears? And I cannot decipher the weaknesses I have, or at least fantasize about what dramatic changes I can make. Someone above mentioned that confidence implies a lack of the need to compare oneself to others, I think this is partially true. All people must compare themselves to others, this is how we know ourselves and differentiate our strengths and weaknesses. The confident person merely takes measure of others and finds themselves to be equal or greater, and does not feel the need to declaim this fact. An arrogant person takes the measure of others and finds themselves lacking and lies about it proclaiming a false reality, or falsely finds themselves of greater worth.

I do not know myself, and am reluctant to take my own measure due to the possibility that I will find myself lacking, thus I overcompensate and appear arrogant. Less my two cents and more my dolla fitty.

By: Nemant

Nemant — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 20:52:39 +0000

I believe confidence is about having self-respect and self-esteem, and treating others with the respect that you would like to be treated with, even if the other person is being a dick you will seem more powerful and confident because you’re ot lowering yourself to that level. You accomplish self-esteem/self-respect and confidence by doing good things, e.g. helping people, treating people with respect, have consciousness of your words and actions, have courage to say things, etc…

By: Baha

Baha — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 03:09:40 +0000

Arrogant, Cocky, Confidence and self-assured are all related somehow. It all depends on how you show it.

In my own personal experience, I am a very cocky guy, i like to be cocky in a very playful way, especially around women and just mention how ‘great’ or ‘gorgeous and perfect’ I am, but I do it in a way its funny to them. I am being cocky and arrogant but since I’m not being serious it doesn’t bother people.

Yes, this arrogancy that I learned and started using back when I was 17 was a way to cover up for my own insecurities, but you know what? I actually learned a couple of things about myself and realized that i had no reason to be insecure. So now that arrogance became confidence and I can walk into a room and talk to anyone about anything because of this confidence.

I know who i am and what i can do, i can be cocky, but i am not full of myself there is always so much to learn, even with all my cockiness not once I’ve been called arrogant. Maybe it’s because when it really comes down to my skills Im really humble person and don’t say much about it or brag.

I have a friend that always says ‘you’re tongue is dangerous so be careful’. He’s really good at what he does but he never says he’s good until time comes and you’ll just see it.

So IMO, Bragging makes you arrogant. Displaying your skills/talents without desperately trying to show them, makes you a confident person.

It’s all about knowing who you are and being OK with what you are.

By: Stuart

Stuart — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 18:44:50 +0000

I think arrogance is in what you say, confidence is in what you dont

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 21:18:59 +0000

So, what if you’re just amazing and you know it? What if you shit talk and follow through with it? Should you just keep it down? Or does the fact that you’re willing to take that kind of pressure reflect confidence in yourself?

I think the real difference is between being condescending and personable. There’s not really any such thing as a personable, arrogant guy.

By: KS

KS — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 19:08:20 +0000

I think it’s relatively easy to confuse confidence for arrogance and vice versa. I think the differences can be subtle. It’s in the person’s overall demeanor, not just the words they say but how they say and even their body language and actions. Like Hirin said, “the same action done with a simple shift in mindset results in the little non-verbal discrepancies that separate confidence from arrogance”.

I think the main difference between a confident guy and an arrogant guy is humility and self-acceptance. Someone who is confidence recognizes his strengths, but also acknowledges his weaknesses as well. A confident person accepts their weaknesses or faults, even though they may not like them. It allows them to handle faults with grace and without further compacting the areas of weakness with arrogance. Someone who is arrogant plays up his strengths while masking their weaknesses. This often leads them to overcompensate by bragging or belittling others.

Like the other females on this thread mentioned, most women are not interested in the arrogant type. But at the same time, many guys that are arrogant are self-assured and have the ability to talk a good game. They are more likely to walk up to a girl and start talking to her. So it’s not so much that women flock to these types of guys as it is these are the guys that are most likely to put themselves out there because they think they can get any woman they want.