I've successfully completed one year of college and I've seen that the modern dating world is tough. Granted, I don't go to the typical college. Geneva doesn't have frat parties where kids go to drink and hookup, pretending their lives are perfect and their friends are flawless until they get drunk enough to spew their real opinions. All I know of those parties is from movies and what friends have casually mentioned, and it probably shows. But I've gathered that at the typical college frat party boys go for one goal -- to get laid -- and girls go for two goals: to feel loved by the boys, and to feel accepted by the girl network. As if dating weren't complicated enough, these college kids have to put up with the casual hookup mentality, where anything could be nothing, which is really something, but will never admit to being anything. Is there a way out?
Usually the girls who suffer the most initially are the ones without any guidelines to a man's behavior. What does it mean? What kinds of things should he say? What does he want to hear? Girls are plagued with the desire to please her man...usually the man who just wanted to use her body and move on. But boys will be boys, right? So there's always a fail-safe way to please any man...give him what he wants.
College ladies, if I told you that you could have a man who respected your body and your limits, one whom you could please by a mere smile, would you take him?
Everything we see is telling us to flaunt what you've got. Use it and abuse it and one day love will find you. It's all over magazines you see in the grocery store, billboards you see along the road, TV commercials, advertisements; you name it, it's screaming at you to pay for the perfect body so that you, too, can be desirable!
And it's your prerogative to show off what you've earned through your workouts, dieting and otherwise body-sculpting methods, especially on Instagram. How many girl friends do you know (or maybe you do this yourself) who snap thoughtlessly controlled shots in the mirror of their flat stomachs or toned arms? I know that those pictures make me feel worse about myself, like I should be doing more to look like that. Hot guys only go after the cute girls, right? So the only way to get a man is to show everyone that you take beauty seriously. It's an exhausting game.
Ladies, I have a counter offer. I mentioned above of a man who respects your body. He doesn't need the perfectly composed Instagram profile to see your beauty. He spots you sitting at your desk, your hair a mess, wearing sweats and a laundry-day's T-shirt and he thinks you're drop-dead gorgeous, anyway. He doesn't urge you to keep drinking way past your tolerance level so that you can't tell up from left. He walks you back to your dorm just to make sure you get there OK and doesn't ask to come in. He doesn't want you to throw yourself at other guys or even at him because he already gives you the respect you merit. My counter offer is to begin to act like this is the type of man in your future. Not that this is the type of man you hope to meet, someday, if he's out there, but that he is the man in your future. He cares more about if you had a good time than if you embarrassed him in front of his friends. He doesn't need you to show off your beauty, because he already sees it in everything you do.
Sure, craft that perfectly composed Instagram profile page, but don't fill it with shots of your workouts or your poolside manner to prove you take beauty seriously. He will love you when he meets you for who you are -- who you are is made up of your opinions, personality, priorities and the sound of your laugh.
Any guy who takes you for your body or because you were easy is not a keeper. Don't make it impossible for him, but don't be that girl who is available to anybody who says she's cute. Be available for that guy who respects you and legitimately enjoys your company. Don't be afraid to go out on dates or say no, but remember (oh, please remember) to respect him, too.
