Is that because a man’s value is equal to his level of confidence/success with women?
No, and reflexive opposite-pole takes so as to derive meaning benefits no one—most of all, you.
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I asked my (Fi-dom) girlfriend about desperation, and what she thought. She said it would elicit feelings of empathy and guilt.
“But what if he was expressing interest?,” I asked. “The same, unless he was creepy about it, or did things that scared me, and then it would be ‘get the fuck away from me.’” “Why guilt?” “Because I would feel bad about rejecting him.”
“What if he expressed a healthy confidence?,” I asked. She said “it wouldn’t mean anything to me.”
“I would say I had a healthy degree of confidence when I met you.,” I said. Her reply: “Yeah, but you smelled good and had a dimple.” I laughed and asked what that meant. She said “Desperation is either empathy and guilt, or ‘get the fuck away from me,’ but confidence just comes down to whether I find someone attractive or not.”
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Anecdotes ≠ data, but I asked the woman immediately available to me and willing to answer questions.
Needless to say, other women will answer as it suits their experiences and preferences, and if you get enough of those stories, maybe your Ni will have enough to discern a truth. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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My girlfriend commented that it probably wouldn’t be of any use to share the above, and when I asked why, she said it was because overall, men want to be in relationships, but they don’t want to think about them, much less talk about them.
I said “I’ll talk about all kinds of stuff, but at the end of the day, what else is there to talk about other than relationships?”
“I know,” she said, “It was clear from the start you are very different that way.”
Cheers,
Ian