A little tired, Pasteton, so bear with me.
There"s a multitude of examples that can be used next, but I believe you"ll get my meaning. Do you consider yourself "so honest" that you"ll tell your girlfriend that a dress she loves looks hideous on her? Are you so "direct" that you"d ever tell her she stinks like an Amsterdam whorehouse after putting too much perfume on, even if that"s exactly what you"re thinking? No? As a "nice guy", of course not. I suspect you"re holding yourself to a double-standard where it"s okay for you to be "honest" when talking about yourself but you hold back when it might paintheror others you care about in a negative light. That"s horribly easy to spot for a girl, no matter how you try to hide it, being absolute masters of double-speak and all. I"d bet a lapdance from Jenna Haze thatthathypocrisy is why it bothered her (and your other woman) so much.
One of the things I"ve found that"s common in good relationships is deference to the injured party. If one person cares deeply or strongly about an issue, and the other one has no real feelings about it either way (and the request is comparatively painless to fulfill), the ambivalent one should hand the reins off. By acknowledging feelings in this way, you quell a lot of hurt and misunderstandings that can just build up and poison everything. It"s a hard lesson to learn, and it"s an ongoing personal process for me, so if someone would like to speak up and explain more eloquently what I mean, please feel free.
Tying into the above... why is your need to tell the truth out-loud so strong when youknow(and you"ve been told by two girls now no less) that it bothers them? They have an emotional investment, for whatever reason ("It"s like you"re ragging on yourself", "It makes you look less confident",IT ACTIVELY MAKES YOU LOOK UNATTRACTIVE TO MEso please don"t do it", etc.)... andallyou have to do is keep your trap shut when it comes to criticism of yourself. That"s it. "Just don"t say it out-loud" is a reasonable request, easy to fulfill, but you insist on doing it. Why? You"re going to be a lonely man if you can"t acknowledge that this particular issue apparently meansa lotto the girls you like... and you keep doing it. Don"t worry; I"m not asking you to lie or, pfft, "fool yourself" - which a silly thought in itself. YOU obviously know what your faults are, vocalizing them or keeping them silent doesn"t change a damn thing about those undesirable traits or your belief in them. You can"t "fool yourself" that way. What matters is THEIR belief. It"s a classic job-review effect where the employee fixates on the bad points instead of the "you do this great" column. As you"re not an employer, you don"t have to worry about that headache. Lucky you! You can pick at those faults/negatives all you want in your head, fuck, write it down on an LJ if you really need to tell the world. But don"t insist on airing your dirty laundry (or doing anything that can be easily stopped, for that matter) when you know it actively hurts someone you"re supposed to care about.
tl;dr: Most girls (I"ve seen, anyway) really do tie unabashed self-criticism to confidence level. Either you find a woman who doesn"t believe in that illogical association, or you defer. The latter is hard, but it"ll serve us all well to learn.
Eomer: Ha! After the inevitable failure, I"ll expect the .ppt on my desk by morning.