Bluffing is a word that means someone is pretending to be confident when they are in a difficult situation and they are trying to get away with something. They want desperately to manipulate you into believing they are confident and have a lot of power and advantage when really they don’t.
They are hoping that if they pretend to be confident, you will be fooled and back away or give in.
For example, in a game of playing cards, especially when betting is involved, a person who has a terrible handful of cards will often bluff. He will try to act very confident, as if he actually had very good cards in his hand.
By this show of confidence, he tries to intimidate the other card players into backing down so he can win. So, he will try to look confident and happy as he looks around the table.
And often, this technique will work, because the other players will believe, "If he is acting so confident, he must have good cards. I should just give up now, before I lose too much."
But as David Lieberman points out, if a person truly had a handful of very good cards, he would not be trying to act confident. Why? Because he has no real need to try to make the other players back down.
A person who truly has a good hand of cards would probably try to act quite neutral so others couldn’t guess that he was happy. Or he might even decide to pretend he is worried and anxious to cover up the fact that his cards are actually very good.
A player only needs to put on a show of confidence when his hand is quite poor.
So very often, a show of confidence is actually a sign that a person is bluffing. Because a person who truly has a powerful advantage doesn’t need to try to act confident.
All people who are bluffing have one thing in common – they want you to think that they have some powerful advantage so they try to convey this by acting confident.
Very often, they try too hard. Remember, that when a person is truly confident of their position or their power, they don’t need to try too hard to convince you they are confident.
This article is written by Royane Real, self help author of the book "Your Guide to Making Friendly Conversation". To check out her books and to sign up for her free newsletter filled with life improving tips, visit http://www.royanereal.com