[withinboredom]

Confidence gets you past any initial filter (not to be confused with arrogance or assertiveness — be respectful).

Once you get serious, it’s the bigger filters you need to worry about IME.

My then new girlfriend’s friend asked me out of nowhere: “what’s a derivative?” And my answer was “investing or calculus?” Apparently that was a filter for my wife when she dated. She wanted smart men who weren’t just faking it, wouldn’t just start talking about things because they knew something about it, etc. Her and her friend had that simple question. I was basically the first guy to pass it. Hell, I even had some basic filters, like going on a road trip together. Eventually, got married, made babies, and travel around the world. I got lucky — met her semi-randomly on the beach through mutual friends. Neither one of us were looking for a relationship at the time.

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[fredophile]

If you're meeting online, which is very common, you can get filtered out well before the first time you meet and can show off your confidence.

[rayiner]

> Apparently that was a filter for my wife when she dated.

What a keeper! My wife randomly invoked Coase theorem the other day while we were chatting on our commute home. Coming up on ten years now. :)

[tptacek]

Congrats!

[rayiner]

Why thank you!

[zeven7]

I would be turned off by that filter, but then maybe your wife's not for me.

[guskel]

Confidence won’t help if you aren’t meeting the other party’s attractiveness threshold.