My sister is with a guy who just turned 60. He's good looking and in fantastic shape. He's kind, smart, observant and has a wide circle of friends.
Just before they started dating, he went to an energy healer we know. He asked her why he hadn't ever been able to find a loving, committed partner, despite being objectively hot and a good catch.
She replied, "you aren't in your body. You're hovering above and to the right of it."
It was true. Lots of people with a concatenation of trauma deal with it by exiting themselves from their physical presence.
He started regularly meditating on being in his body. A month later, he and my sister went on their first date.
She says there wouldn't have been a second date if he hadn't been palpably grounded.
Which is what Polly's beautiful rant is describing how to do.
"Do you want them to be answering your question, or making a statement of their own volition?"
"So stop forming yourself into a question mark. Stop asking for more from the wrong sources."
This is the gold right here. I spent *so* much time trying to be the answer men were looking for. The last one even asked me to try to make a case for myself and our relationship.
You don't have to sell yourself or prove your worth. Leave these guys to double tap on IG while you attract people who appreciate who you are, three-dimensional, and in the flesh.
Focus on the guys that do see and want you. Pick out the funny, smart, kind ones and go on multiple dates with them where you do fun, collaborative activities together, especially activities that make you both feel a bit anxious. Focus on the fish in your own pond rather than the pretty ones in the pond over. The right guy for you will think you’re amazing.
Also be careful your stories haven’t placed limits on how you present yourself. Sometimes women who don’t see themselves as conventionally attractive don’t allow themselves to wear clothes/makeup/hair that their pretty counterparts will. It’s like they surrender to the idea that looks is not their thing. You may inadvertently be signalling that you aren’t interested in attracting a partner. It sounds like you want to connect with your sexy side. A good place to start is by experimenting with clothes/hair/makeup.
I had a boyfriend for a while - one I was wildly attracted to - who once said to me, “I’m like some obscure, bitter Italian liqueur: most people aren’t into me, but those who are, are *really* into me.” And I thought, ‘hot damn, that’s the attitude I need to cultivate.’ And I have tried to! But as Heather notes, it’s always a work in progress.
Thank you as always, Heather. Your advice here reminds me of a snippet from a response you gave on an older letter that has stuck with me since I read it:
"When you are dating men, love yourself first and last."
Decentering from men and their arbitrary values is critical in learning, understanding, and appreciating who you are and what is important to you. That way, you'll know to focus on only the very few men who value you the way you do yourself and you won't pursue and ponder the men who don't.
Snippet that hit home: "When you crave approval and acceptance from others and you linger around anxiously waiting for it, it erodes your sense of self and unsettles the ground under your feet. "
No joke, my vision blurred and I cried a bit. I felt seen. It me, as the kids say (do they say that anymore?).
Perfectly encapsulates part of the dynamic of my life and the fraught nature of the situationship in which I was involved, until last month when I ended it. I was never going to get what I needed from him (approval/acceptance) and yet I kept going to the hardware store for milk when I knew damn well they didn't have any, and never will.
I love this. Thank you for answering this letter. I went through a similar situation with my best guy friend that I'm still trying to make sense of. We had the most amazing friendship - so, so much laughter - like, laughing to the point of tears, frequently - shared interests, we would talk for *hours*/day for years on end, even had a (very fun but also, obviously, very fraught) physical relationship for six months. But he could never get himself to "feel romantically." Eventually we had to stop speaking.
What's hard for me is not being able to get angry at him for it. He gave a few reasons for why he thought a relationship would be hard (e.g., my anxiety issues, which is more than fair) but mostly he was just "afraid of hurting me." I also know I'm not his physical type, but I'm also not exactly an ogre. Anyway, a lot more complicated details but I find it so challenging to not shame my intensity/anxiety/body for this huge void in my life. It feels juvenile to need to have someone to blame to make it okay, and yet...I wonder if it's healthy to try to conjure more disdain when guys do this?
I adore this response. Something that has helped me understand this stuff better is reading Tressie McMillan Cottom. She explains that conventional attractiveness is social currency and men want to be with social media hots bc it actually makes them worth more in society than if they were with a non conventionally attractive woman. She also rebukes the idea that “everyone is beautiful!!” because particular types of beauty are worth more than others and we’re gaslighting people by telling them they’re beautiful when they are suffering real consequences for not fitting into the beauty standard.
Apr 12, 2023·edited Apr 12, 2023Liked by Heather Havrilesky
Looks and chemistry (as Heather has noted before) are both overrated for long term relationships. This cuts both ways , naturally. The most attractive person in the world is the one attracted to you. That's the place to start. Find someone attracted to you Sexy! No doubt, there are people attracted to your smarts, and that will automatically improve any other qualities you have.
"Make it your practice not just to reassure yourself, not just to quiet your anxious mind, not just to refuse to berate yourself for not taking some supposedly perfect shape, but to elevate what you already are."
I've been working really hard at those first three things, but elevation, oh my goodness. I want that so much AND it seems so scary to imagine letting go of whatever's holding me back.
I've never related to being sexy, because of the passive, objectifying associations the word has in my mind. Sexual, on the other hand, sits perfectly in line with being a smart, powerful woman with an abundant life. It doesn't need some checked out guy to validate it. Audre Lorde's Uses of the Erotic is such a good description of what a fully integrated sexuality can do.
This post really resonated with me. I am someone who spent the first half of her life feeling ugly and “not enough” and feeling lucky to be in committed relationships with men at all. It took major work for me to challenge that nasty inner critic (that came from who-knows-where), remove the clouds from my eyes, and see the beauty that I really possessed. Thank you for writing this.
It’s an interesting topic for sure. The tricky thing is: none of us can help what we’re attracted to. So there’s that. Also, I’ve always found that the harder I want someone the further away they seem to move. Some weird, inexplicable law of the cosmos it seems. It does often seem broadly speaking that there’s sort of a correlation between traditional/conventional physical beauty and...how shall we say this...less brains. Not always, obviously. But the prettiest women often do seem to not be the sharpest. Probably it’s the same for men. All this aside: There are plenty of men who dig intelligent, sharp women. There’s something very attractive about that. And we often want what we can’t have. I do feel intimidated around women smarter than me...but I also find it to be a juicy challenge. When you find a woman with beauty and brains it’s just magical and dangerous 😳
My sister is with a guy who just turned 60. He's good looking and in fantastic shape. He's kind, smart, observant and has a wide circle of friends.
Just before they started dating, he went to an energy healer we know. He asked her why he hadn't ever been able to find a loving, committed partner, despite being objectively hot and a good catch.
She replied, "you aren't in your body. You're hovering above and to the right of it."
It was true. Lots of people with a concatenation of trauma deal with it by exiting themselves from their physical presence.
He started regularly meditating on being in his body. A month later, he and my sister went on their first date.
She says there wouldn't have been a second date if he hadn't been palpably grounded.
Which is what Polly's beautiful rant is describing how to do.
"Do you want them to be answering your question, or making a statement of their own volition?"
"So stop forming yourself into a question mark. Stop asking for more from the wrong sources."
This is the gold right here. I spent *so* much time trying to be the answer men were looking for. The last one even asked me to try to make a case for myself and our relationship.
You don't have to sell yourself or prove your worth. Leave these guys to double tap on IG while you attract people who appreciate who you are, three-dimensional, and in the flesh.
Focus on the guys that do see and want you. Pick out the funny, smart, kind ones and go on multiple dates with them where you do fun, collaborative activities together, especially activities that make you both feel a bit anxious. Focus on the fish in your own pond rather than the pretty ones in the pond over. The right guy for you will think you’re amazing.
Also be careful your stories haven’t placed limits on how you present yourself. Sometimes women who don’t see themselves as conventionally attractive don’t allow themselves to wear clothes/makeup/hair that their pretty counterparts will. It’s like they surrender to the idea that looks is not their thing. You may inadvertently be signalling that you aren’t interested in attracting a partner. It sounds like you want to connect with your sexy side. A good place to start is by experimenting with clothes/hair/makeup.
I had a boyfriend for a while - one I was wildly attracted to - who once said to me, “I’m like some obscure, bitter Italian liqueur: most people aren’t into me, but those who are, are *really* into me.” And I thought, ‘hot damn, that’s the attitude I need to cultivate.’ And I have tried to! But as Heather notes, it’s always a work in progress.
Thank you as always, Heather. Your advice here reminds me of a snippet from a response you gave on an older letter that has stuck with me since I read it:
"When you are dating men, love yourself first and last."
Decentering from men and their arbitrary values is critical in learning, understanding, and appreciating who you are and what is important to you. That way, you'll know to focus on only the very few men who value you the way you do yourself and you won't pursue and ponder the men who don't.
Snippet that hit home: "When you crave approval and acceptance from others and you linger around anxiously waiting for it, it erodes your sense of self and unsettles the ground under your feet. "
No joke, my vision blurred and I cried a bit. I felt seen. It me, as the kids say (do they say that anymore?).
Perfectly encapsulates part of the dynamic of my life and the fraught nature of the situationship in which I was involved, until last month when I ended it. I was never going to get what I needed from him (approval/acceptance) and yet I kept going to the hardware store for milk when I knew damn well they didn't have any, and never will.
I love this. Thank you for answering this letter. I went through a similar situation with my best guy friend that I'm still trying to make sense of. We had the most amazing friendship - so, so much laughter - like, laughing to the point of tears, frequently - shared interests, we would talk for *hours*/day for years on end, even had a (very fun but also, obviously, very fraught) physical relationship for six months. But he could never get himself to "feel romantically." Eventually we had to stop speaking.
What's hard for me is not being able to get angry at him for it. He gave a few reasons for why he thought a relationship would be hard (e.g., my anxiety issues, which is more than fair) but mostly he was just "afraid of hurting me." I also know I'm not his physical type, but I'm also not exactly an ogre. Anyway, a lot more complicated details but I find it so challenging to not shame my intensity/anxiety/body for this huge void in my life. It feels juvenile to need to have someone to blame to make it okay, and yet...I wonder if it's healthy to try to conjure more disdain when guys do this?
I adore this response. Something that has helped me understand this stuff better is reading Tressie McMillan Cottom. She explains that conventional attractiveness is social currency and men want to be with social media hots bc it actually makes them worth more in society than if they were with a non conventionally attractive woman. She also rebukes the idea that “everyone is beautiful!!” because particular types of beauty are worth more than others and we’re gaslighting people by telling them they’re beautiful when they are suffering real consequences for not fitting into the beauty standard.
Looks and chemistry (as Heather has noted before) are both overrated for long term relationships. This cuts both ways , naturally. The most attractive person in the world is the one attracted to you. That's the place to start. Find someone attracted to you Sexy! No doubt, there are people attracted to your smarts, and that will automatically improve any other qualities you have.
This really jumped out at me today:
"Make it your practice not just to reassure yourself, not just to quiet your anxious mind, not just to refuse to berate yourself for not taking some supposedly perfect shape, but to elevate what you already are."
I've been working really hard at those first three things, but elevation, oh my goodness. I want that so much AND it seems so scary to imagine letting go of whatever's holding me back.
I've never related to being sexy, because of the passive, objectifying associations the word has in my mind. Sexual, on the other hand, sits perfectly in line with being a smart, powerful woman with an abundant life. It doesn't need some checked out guy to validate it. Audre Lorde's Uses of the Erotic is such a good description of what a fully integrated sexuality can do.
This post really resonated with me. I am someone who spent the first half of her life feeling ugly and “not enough” and feeling lucky to be in committed relationships with men at all. It took major work for me to challenge that nasty inner critic (that came from who-knows-where), remove the clouds from my eyes, and see the beauty that I really possessed. Thank you for writing this.
It’s an interesting topic for sure. The tricky thing is: none of us can help what we’re attracted to. So there’s that. Also, I’ve always found that the harder I want someone the further away they seem to move. Some weird, inexplicable law of the cosmos it seems. It does often seem broadly speaking that there’s sort of a correlation between traditional/conventional physical beauty and...how shall we say this...less brains. Not always, obviously. But the prettiest women often do seem to not be the sharpest. Probably it’s the same for men. All this aside: There are plenty of men who dig intelligent, sharp women. There’s something very attractive about that. And we often want what we can’t have. I do feel intimidated around women smarter than me...but I also find it to be a juicy challenge. When you find a woman with beauty and brains it’s just magical and dangerous 😳
Michael Mohr
‘The Incompatibility of Being Alive’
https://reallife82.substack.com/
I just keep coming back to read this one this week. How life affirming. Chills!