Lately, men and dating have been dominating the conversations of myself and my friends. It seems that right now, all my married friends and serious-boyfriend-friends are having issues with their significant others, and hearing it all is making me very happy that I’m not in a relationship.

However, that doesn’t stop me from wondering why I’m not, and I fluctuate between being blissfully happy in my single life and the freedom it offers and wondering when I’ll have an awesome partner to explore life with.

My friend (who has sworn off guys for the time being, as have I), forwarded me a thought-provoking article that helps explain my bipolar feelings toward relationships. Basically, it’s not just me.

Here’s my favorite part:

“Did we find love because we grew up, got real and worked through our

issues? No. We just found the right guys. We found men who love us

even though we’re still cranky and neurotic, haven’t got our careers

together, and sometimes talk too loudly, drink too much and swear at

the television news. We have gray hairs and unfashionable clothes and  bad attitudes. They love us, anyway.

 What’s wrong with me? Plenty. But that was never the point.”

NY Times: “Modern Love”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/fashion/sometimes-its-not-you-or-the-math-modern-love.html

Basically, ladies, let’s stop focusing on what behaviors we can change to attract a guy, and just focus on how to improve ourselves FOR OURSELVES and the RIGHT guy will come. Anyone who asks you to change is obviously the WRONG guy. Quit wasting your time.

Sometimes we need to be more like guys … maintain a laser focus on only what makes you happy. For example, just look at the covers of magazines. Men’s magazines feature articles on interesting, thought-provoking topics such as travel, wine, cigars, business moguls, world issues, and how to survive shark attacks. Here are the cover headlines of this month’s leading women’s magazines: shiny hair!, whiter teeth!, how to lose 8 pounds and be happy!, sexy new makeup!, how to please him!, 10 tips to be sexier for him! … you see my point.

A blogger on one of my favorite sites, www.thehairpin.com puts it:

“You can tell by looking at the ads in the back of these magazines, as, unlike the articles, the ads demonstrate who the magazine believes you to be, not who they’ve found it lucrative to make you think you are.

And the back of “Men’s Journal” is a sea of those small metal-and-plastic devices intended to improve your grip strength, so make of that what you will.”