1. Practice.
2. Don't suck.
3. Even if you do suck, try to project an attitude like you don't and you will probably still get girls.
But in all seriousness, #1. A lot. And work in practice with a metronome, playing along to the song on a CD player, or both. Until you do this regularly, you will not discover that your perfect-sounding timing is anything but. Learn some basic scale shapes and practice impromptu soloing. Even if you don't like to solo, it changes up your practice, helps you familiarize yourself with more parts of the fretboard than you otherwise would, and builds speed and dexterity. When your fingers hurt, it's natural and doesn't mean anything is wrong with you; they have to hurt for a while until you build up callouses. Barre chords are tough for beginners; what helped me quite a bit was still forming the bar chord shapes on my arm or anything else I could find when I was away from my guitar. Even if you aren't that good and are very self-conscious about your playing, try to play with other people as much as humanly possible; you will learn tons of stuff and gain in confidence.
Those are my random thoughts, anyway.