It’s generally accepted that good eye contact is a great way of making a first impression work very well for you. This has even been shown scientifically - researchers at Aberdeen University conducted a study showing that people were generally rated as more attractive if they were looking straight at an observer and smiling (New Scientist article).

Your goal is to make the person you’re talking with feel that he or she is comfortable and engaged with you. Look him or her straight in the eye, glancing away once in a while. Smile and nod to show that you’re paying attention.

With that in mind, here are some tips that should make it easier for you to have good eye contact with someone you’re conversing with:

• If you’re shy about looking someone in the eye, look in between their eyes. If you look at somewhere around the bridge of their nose, you should still give the impression that you’re looking right at them.

   

• Don’t STARE. If you’re just giving them a fixed gaze without ever breaking it, it’s creepy. Break your gaze every once in a while by glancing quickly up, or to the side, or by looking at the face somewhere aside from the eyes.

   

• Relax, and focus on what the person is saying.Good eye contact is a way of showing a person that you’re paying attention, but do make sure that you’re actually paying attention. By doing not focusing so much on how good your eye contact is, you’ll relax - and ironically, your eye contact will become more natural!

   

Maintain good eye-contact, smile, and you’ll find that people will warm up to you much more easily.

I’m a frequenter of anime and manga conventions. In fact, I’m planning to go to two this year and completely geek out for a couple of days.

One of the highlights of anime conventions for me are the cosplayers. A particularly notorious cosplayer is Man-Faye:

Faye is a female character from the excellent anime Cowboy Bebop who used to be quite the fanboy favorite back in the day - and this cosplayer has decided to cosplay her, male gender, hairy legs and protruding gut be damned. Man-Faye even makes sexy poses accentuating his butt in some of his pictures.

And you know what? More power to him!

Because, folks - this is one confident dude. This is a man who, in the face of derision from fellow anime fans and despite his less-than-perfect body shape, has decided to go out and have fun. And because of that, Man-Faye has become a minor celebrity among con-goers, to the point that he even has his own website: man-faye.com

I think Man-Faye is a great example of how to be a confident, fun-loving geek - he’s not scared of what other people think of him, and he just wants to have fun. Good job, Man-Faye!

Oh, and by the way, if you haven’t seen Cowboy Bebop.. you NEED to watch it. One of the best action animes ever, IMO, with a soundtrack for the ages.

Buy the Cowboy Bebop Remix: Anime Legends DVDs at Amazon.com

Image by Tigrikorn, used under a Creative Commons License.

One of my beliefs is that learning a new skill is a great way to boost your confidence. Not only does it increase your self-esteem by showing you that you’re capable of drawing something great, it also allows you to make more friends in the artist community.

I know this from experience, since I used to draw manga-style art. This allowed me to join communities, both offline and online, that had plenty of people who drew in a style similar to mine. I was able to make new friends, and also, this was how I met my girlfriend - we first connected over manga and art.

Now, if you’re a complete beginner, there’re a couple of things that you should keep in mind:

• Practice is key: If you want to get good at drawing, you absolutely have to practice drawing. Do it for a few hours every week. Find artists you admire, and try to emulate them.

   

• Get the fundamentals correct at the start: Although getting technical details such as perspective and anatomical proportion isn’t the sexiest part of drawing, if you get it right from the start,you don’t have to correct mistakes in your drawing style later on.

   

• Learn from a variety of artists and sources: To develop your own style, don’t just emulate one artist! Take the good things from many different artists, learn from many different sources, and you’ll find your art developing more quickly.

   

• Join an art community: Joining an art community will connect you to different artists. This will expose you to different styles and ideas, as well as give you motivation to keep drawing.

   

Now, drawing tutorials is a huge topic by itself, which I plan to address in a future post. However, here are some online art galleries where you can upload and display your art for free, and also check out what other artists are drawing.

• Deviantart: One of the most famous online art galleries. Great for getting exposure for your art.

   

• Elfwood Fantasy and Science-Fiction Art Galleries: This was the first art site I ever joined, and while it’s not as lively as Deviantart is, it’s still a great way to meet people who are interested in fantasy art. Be aware, however, that they have very strict rules for what’s acceptable in their galleries (must be fantasy/sci-fi), and that all incoming artwork in checked by human moderators.

   

Future posts will go into drawing for confidence in more detail. In the meantime, have fun drawing, and have a Merry Christmas!

It might be helpful, as you figure out your personal approach to gaining confidence, to have a working definition of confidence that you can fall back on.

Dictionary.com, which takes its definitions from the 2006 Random House Unabridged Dictionary, defines confidence as:

• (the) belief in oneself and one’s powers or abilities; self-confidence; self-reliance; assurance:

It seems like a fairly terse definition, but there’s enough in there to give us some food for thought. For example, we see here that the definition begins right off the bat with “belief in oneself”. Believing in yourself can encompass many things - for example, you can believe in your own strengths, you can believe in your ability to get through a situation.. and equally important, you can believe that you are the kind of person who has the ability to be happy and fulfilled in your life and your relationships.

The phrase “one’s powers and abilities” should be highlighted, too - no matter how you feel about yourself, I’m willing to bet that there’s some ability or skill of yours that you’re at least somewhat proud of. List your abilities, develop them, and find new abilities to learn. As you convince yourself that you’re a skilled person by gaining new skills or improving existing ones, your confidence will grow.

Also, pay attention to the word “self-reliance” in that definition. You may interpret that as meaning a confident person isn’t dependent on other people in managing their lives - but just as importantly, a confident person isn’t reliant on someone else to validate them.

In short:

• Believe in yourself.
• Grow your skills and abilities.
• Be self-reliant.

Of course, this is a VERY limited list - there’s much more to self-confidence than just these! The point is for you to define self-confidence for yourself, with this as an example. List out what you want to see in a new, more confident you, and make that your personal definition of self-confidence!

I came across this Youtube video this morning, which depicts a lonely, disheveled geek during Christmas, whose only hope of companionship is a virtual Christmas dinner over the Internet.

He invites the members of his online forum to participate in his virtual dinner, and even makes special animated Santa smileys for them - only to find no one for him, even online. Dejected, the geek resigns himself to a lonely Christmas, but when he hears a knock on his door and opens it, he is surprised by two warm and friendly people, who give him a hug and spend Christmas with him playing board games. The last shot in this film is the geek looking happy that he won’t have to spend Christmas alone.

Of course, this is a fictional video - and furthermore, this video and its companion site, Befriend A Geek.com, seem to be part of a viral marketing campaign for two web design companies.

However, what’s interesting in this video is how the geek is portrayed - as a lonely, disheveled soul with no hope of finding companionship even online. The premise of the video, tongue-in-cheek as it is, is that geeks need help with social interactions even during Christmas time. That’s pretty much in line with the classic geeky shut-in stereotype.

I don’t think the stereotype is true, personally. Most geeks I know do have friends and family around them to be with during the holidays. However, there probably are some individuals who are alone during the holidays, and do not like it, and my wish for them during this holiday season is that they, too, are someday blessed with the gift of companionship.

What do you think of this video? Is this true of your own experience, or of someone you know? Is this just a nasty stereotype? Where do you like to be during Christmas, or during any other festive event?