"Confidence" is the process of trusting your judgement. Specifically, sound judgement. This comes from years of exposure to difficult and complex situations and a track record of learning from your mistakes and updating your expectations for the next time you are in similar situations. Supreme confidence is indistinguishable from jadedness.

An experienced plumber is completed bored by a blocked toilet. With well developed and sound judgement, you will look at all social situations the same way.

Therefore, intentionally and repeatedly challenging yourself by going into situations where you have compromised sleep, etc. in order to gain experience is by far the best way to achieve confidence.

1. This is a very complex question;

I would say in summary that confidence is more a mindset thing overall but that hormones can give you an edge of push/ assertiveness. I would base this on the fact that an unhealthy rockstar will probably be more confident in his dealings with people than a regular guy on high dose TRT simply because he is a rock star and has learned from countless interactions that he will usually get everything he wants. Sure hormones help. JFK was on the notorious Halotestin -as a medicine not at meat head levels- and it may well have contributed to his confidence with both men and women but being a rich successful politician probably played the greater part.

Athleticism and hormones is a knotty issue. There is a correlation for sure between testosterone levels and short burst anaerobic exercise -say sprinting but powerlifting is a low testosterone sport (if clean) and longer distance running is low test too. One has to factor in things like the muscles' ability to respond to damage and the number and sensitivity of androgen receptors as well as overall testosterone levels. One then has hormones like insulin, HGH and IGF which make a big difference too. Insulin particularly makes a difference in how you feel in energy levels. Diet might make a significant difference there and as one ages, having insulin working properly will allow other hormones to keep working well too. There is also the whole pituitary gland and circadian rhythm thing to consider as well. Its all interlinked and when one is young one can abuse bits of the picture a little and still get good overall results because robust youthful health is enough to hold the frame of good hormone health. Almost no one gets away with abusing bits of their endocrine system in older age. So adopting as many good habits as soon as possible has to be good advice.

Winning is scientifically proven to increase testosterone levels and also lead to more winning so it is definitely all bound up and winning socially will improve your hormones and also improve your mindset. One of the more interesting experiments they did on winning was to castrate rats, then make them compete. Winning rats were either given test (as would happen naturally in a non castrated male) or not given test. The rats given test won more in future (like non castrated males did). The winning castrated rats not given test did not win any more than average in future. So it is all bound up. Keeping balanced good health and creating success are probably the two biggest things you can do.

1. There is more to do in a city for sure and its in general easier to do as well. People do sometimes worry about the quality of interactions and friendships in cities -you get quite a few people in their 30 and 40's moving away from the city to find more meaning in their relationships and so there is probably something in this. Its hard to have it all but knowing what you want, where to find it and going after it are probably the most important things. In hunting I always like the golden rule -"Go where the game is". What do you want to hunt? Where is it most commonly found? What does it feed on in preference? Where does it rest? Where does it move in heat, cold, rain, at dawn/dusk, under pressure from predators, in rut? Get there just before it and shoot it when it turns up. Lots of guys try really hard to improve their fieldcraft and their shooting and that's great but getting good at being where the animals are going to be is actually the most important skill of all. This seems to hold true in life as well. Decide what you want most from life and then go where it is easiest to get that.

Question 1: neither. real confidence comes from achieving things and overcoming obstacles and realizing that while setbacks suck, you'll be OK and even overcome. Confidence is also a place to fake it until you make it, at least for the purpose of getting laid.

Question 2: what do you want? No one can answer this for you.