The Beauty and the Beast: How over-confidence can ruin a Saturday night out (and your relationships as well)

Saturday night out. You and your friends are desperately waiting for the last one of the group, who has been preparing for quite longer than he initially promised. You have gone past highlighting the surrealism of the situation in a humorous way. Now everybody is trying their best not to highlight how rude the behavior you are facing is.

Everybody? No… your friend finally appears on the doorstep, shining with self-confidence and self-love, as he declares: “I am now dressed, get ready to be impressed!”. Proud of himself for keeping every single piece of his nutritionist’s advice and never missing a gym training, he is more than happy to show you how well his new, expensive pair of pants fits. “Now let’s go drink!” he announces. “My confidence is back!”

Since your friend seems unable to realise that the looks he’s getting are not those of admiration, one of the group dares raise her voice and point out the obvious: “Good for you… but what about us? Do you have any idea of how long you kept us waiting?”.

“Come on! You need not be as smart as me to know that time is relative! The rate at which time passes depends on your frame of reference. Now, your reference of time is your dear friend! You are happy about me, right? It’s been so long since I’ve felt that good. Let’s go hit the baaaars!”

Do you know what you just experienced?

A lovely moment of overconfidence bias.

Overconfidence involves comparing yourself to others with regards to a skill or ability and making the assumption (often erroneously) that you are better than the majority of other people. Not surprisingly, overconfidence can cause us to experience relationship problems- regarding both our professional and personal life. You are overconfident when you think that, no matter how you treat a person, they’ll always be around. You are overconfident when you think you can do everybody else’s work, better.

In other words- being overconfident makes you feel insightful, but what it actually makes you is short-sighted. Short-sighted not only about others, but also about yourself. Over-confidence does not mean you are actually confident. It means quite the opposite. And it definitely means you lack self-awareness. And of course, then comes trouble.

Shall we elaborate? Let’s follow that group of friends while their Saturday night out is unfolding. For reference purposes, let’s call our shiny, overconfident protagonist, Leo.

The group enters the third pub in a row of places that Leo quickly declined as “not sophisticated enough to appreciate him”. Everybody is having a great time, socialising, drinking, having fun. Some are dancing, others just lose themselves in the moment. Others engage in deep conversation. Others flirt.

Despite declaring his self-confidence levels to be sky high, Leo is bitterly surprised to find out he is not doing as well as his humble friends. And he blames everything on them, for not giving him the appreciation, the attention, the effort he deserves. He spends the night miserably swallowing his drink, taking oaths to never go out with this group of traitors. “Never again” he whispers. The Beauty has turned into a Beast.

Now, Leo is blaming his friends. Should we blame him? No. Instead, it is his overconfidence- and lack of actual confidence- that we should blame. Cause having reality crushing your self- imagery of superiority and overestimation of abilities to perform, is never a pleasant thing to experience.

So, what can Leo do?

As the song “A change in me” written for Belle in Beauty and the Beast: The Musical, says:

But in its place I feel

A truer life begin

And it’s so good and real

It must come from within.

You know what the real change from within depends on, right? It’s not a magic spell. It’s all about soft skills.

Maintaining healthy relationships, whether these relationships regard work or personal life, is a tough task by itself. One must maintain an ongoing level of engagement with other(s), while the communication is open and non-judgmental. Self-confidence expresses the belief in ourability to successfully perform various tasks. Let’s highlight that no matter what the nature of the relationship is, communication skills, emotionality and stress all influence it, but the person’s self-image will affect how any issues will be managed and therefore have the greatest bearing on its outcome.