Yeah, I got what you meant. I wasn't exclusively referring to strong convictions in ideologies, and was more generally referring to -- or at least started out with the intent to -- the social construct of overemphasis on confidence while we were on the subject of confidence.

Not sure I have anything helpful to chime in with since I am working towards certain truths myself. I'm sorry you are experiencing that discomfort, and I'm saying it's fine for you to feel that doubt. That doubt is not atypical, and I can relate. The fact that society puts so much emphasis on certitude is bothersome, is what I'm getting at. We then needlessly fixate on our own doubts or our lack of not knowing things, and it exacerbates anxiety. Because it's framed in such competitive terms. We feel pressured into it. Doubt's perceived as a character flaw some of the time, of course. But that usually originates from the self-righteous.

I know what you mean by people overlooking the truth because they're attracted to a very specific kind of charisma, but that's on them; appeals to emotion win out in favor of facts with the average person. The truth is often outright rejected. If you think you are 100% right, peoples' perception should be incidental. Still, it's hard to remind yourself this in the heat of the moment, I realize. Can't always do it myself. Social influence can make all well-laid intentions go to hell. I guess if you want to change up your demeanor and satisfy people, that's fine; if that would make you more comfortable around them--but you just have to dive deep and consider what you'd really want if all social intervention were out of the equation. Then commit to that, and quite conceivably the pressures will fall away the more you consciously apply this mentality during moments of intense scrutinizing of your actions, unless this sort of anxiety you mention is not in fact exogenous and so entrenched it needs to be addressed medically. I'm capable of projecting others' IDEA of confidence (I pretty much have an awareness of what they respond to) and deliberately don't do it because it just feels like pandering to me. But that's just me, and I'm obstinate. People-pleasing is mostly not in the cards for me lately (on some level it is, sure), but I didn't really start out that way; the vast array of criticisms I ruminate on in my internal dialogue and all the filtering I do may come out of a desire to appeal to someone a bit, though mostly from an accumulation of compulsions and bearing witness to untold numbers of critiques in the past - being surrounded by cynics. Anyway, yeah..maybe you have a different set of criteria.

Or there's the possibility people are not seeing your perceived lack of confidence as much as you think and it's simply social anxiety distorting your view. I don't know the specifics.

As for not changing the fact that women are attracted overwhelmingly to confident men in general, I could harp on this for a while, but it'd be too irrelevant (not that this has necessarily ever stopped me before). But yes, I guess you could say it's genetic to a certain extent, and then social programming.