Market value theory revisited

A few days ago Markku commented on my previous MVT posting, saying that "itsetunto" (which means "self-esteem" in Finnish, but is better translated as "self-confidence" in this particular context) is a positive market value factor in itself in the eyes of many women, since being popular with other women is also a positive market value factor in itself, and the lack of self-confidence is usually a mark of being unpopular with women since getting a lot of rejections causes a loss of self-confidence.

He is surely right about both self-confidence and popularity with other women being positive market value factors, but I am not nearly as sure about the connection. IME men who have the least self-confidence in approaching women have not normally experienced any rejections at all since they have never managed to bring themselves to actually proposition any women. Those of them who are sufficiently attractive and hang out with a lot of women often get women by the way of women propositioning them, but even the realization of being attractive and well-liked by women does not tend to cure their shyness much.

OTOH a lot of men who proposition women easily, aggressively and insistently make an impression that it has been a while since they have had a positive response. (I actually ask them about it nowadays, it they all claim to live in an unvoluntarily chaste way). IMO nothing screams "loser" as much as the guy who tries to pick me up in a street, gets rejected and tries to follow me for a half an hour explaining me why I was wrong to reject him, and I don't think I am alone in this opinion. (I wonder if it's a cultural difference - people who do that tend to be immigrants from Africa and sometimes Middle East, but I have asked a couple of guys whether this tactic works better on African women and they said it doesn't.)

And yet a lot of women like self-confidence (I mean in particularly self-confidence in approaching members of the desirable sex) and a lot of men do, too. But what the hell for? The obvious answer "so that their children are self-confident and liked by the prospective sex partner" is obviously circular. What is the practical value of the "pick-up self-confidence" in your partner, except of course not having to approach him/her yourself? Especially since "pick-up self-confidence" does not seem to correlate much with any other kind of self-confidence, for example professional self-confidence? Does "pick-up self-confidence" even exist except as an ability to put up a show of it? Is anyone ever really self-confident while propositioning a prospective partner? I remember putting on a semi-decent show of self-confidence many times when the situation really demanded it, but inside I was feeling rather shy and sheepish all the time as I was doing that.

Is the ability to put up a show valuable in itself? I don't think the ability to put up this particular show even correlates much with any other acting abilities.