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I recently came across an entertaining article on the Yahoo Lifestyle website entitled, “The five most deadly relationship questions”. You can read the whole article here, as it was really quite funny, but there was one question that really stood out…..
“Do you know that girl?”
…Because if you don’t, and you really have just spent the last five minutes gawping at her like I don’t exist, I’m going to take you down into a universe of pain. When I’ve finished with you, you’ll be begging me to remove your eyeballs just so you can never disrespect me this way again. Not that you’ll be able to speak.”
If you’re a woman and you find yourself asking this question, slap yourself. The only way to keep your sassy edge in a relationship is to maintain as much self-control as you can. Keep “dignity” as your mantra and you won’t go far wrong – you won’t booty-text at 3am, you won’t drink too much on dates, and you won’t let insecurity leak out in seemingly innocuous ways like asking this question.
If you don’t like how you look and fear your partner might find someone else, then improve yourself. Not to keep him, but to make yourself feel better. Look after yourself, exercise, wear your best clothes. Feel like a catch!
If you’re a man on the receiving end of this question, there can be only one answer: “What, that ugly one?” Then check you still have all your limbs. If you do, you dodged a bullet so vow never to make the mistake again.
When I started reading this specific bit, I did get very self-righteous and was really tapping into my feminist “what’s wrong with men” side. As women, we’ve all been there…..You’re walking down the street with your other half without a care in the world. Then you see her. The perfect specimen of female beauty: hair that the average women could never even achieve even if they’ve just walked out of the salon; piercing eyes with what could only be fake eyelashes (I’m sure of it!); a pout worthy of challenging Angelina herself; breasts so perky they probably wouldn’t even droop an inch when removed from that wonderbra!; a waist of perfect measurements; an ass you could bounce a quarter off of and legs that could reach up to the heavens themselves.
Not only would this image of perfection make the average woman feel horribly self-conscious when strolling past on her own, but on this occasion the boyfriend is involved. Now, you know he’s clocked her too and is trying his utmost not to stare, but there is an intense battle going on between the man’s natural instincts of admiring a beautiful woman and his natural instincts of not getting throttled by his girlfriend. The former usually wins the battle which results in the latter.
The ridiculous thing is, that I know my boyfriend wouldn’t be with me if he didn’t want to be and that it’s only natural for a man to look at an attractive woman. However, in my mind, a little play acts itself out and it goes as follows…..He sees the beautiful woman; he makes a mental list of everything she has that I don’t; he feels suffocated in his current relationship and forgets about any positive attributes I may have; he dumps me on the spot and goes bounding towards Miss Perfection….a trail of dust is left in his wake and I’m left standing alone on the side-walk. Crazy, right?
Here’s the catch though….it’s all in my head and strangely enough, it has nothing to do with my boyfriend or anything he’s thinking about Little Miss Perfect. It’s a combination of envy and low self-esteem speaking. Envy, because most days I wish I didn’t have to worry about my weight and that I could just wake up with a perfect body like hers. Low self-esteem, because if that’s all you always fall back on, then all you have is negativity. I can’t find anything good about myself, so everybody must be better than me, right? Great logic!
So, bringing things back to the article I read, I was a bit taken aback when I read the following:
“If you don’t like how you look and fear your partner might find someone else, then improve yourself. Not to keep him, but to make yourself feel better. Look after yourself, exercise, wear your best clothes. Feel like a catch!”
I was shocked because it’s such a simple and also honest truth. This truth leaves only one person to blame….you. If you feel like a catch, then your boyfriend will feel likewise. As already stated above, you shouldn’t do these things purely for his benefit. But if you start making small changes to your health, fitness and appearance they will pay off. Not only will you start feeling good about YOU, but your new-found confidence will rub off and you’ll feel amazing every day. You’ll be able to walk down the street and when face to face with Miss Perfect, you can acknowledge her good qualities, but also list your own and not feel inferior.
Realistically, I’ll probably never end up looking like a super model, but if I aim to make myself feel like a “catch” everyday, I’ll be happier not just within myself, but also within my relationship. At the risk of sounding like a L’Oreal advert…..I’ll know that I’m worth being in a relationship with and that the boyfriend knows it too! 🙂
lynne2thin 