Girls, leave the tan in the can where it belongs!

I was just reading one of the AOL articles on "How To Find Lasting Love." They give you a series of tips and KABAM! Love is on it's way to your house.

NOT.

All of these tips were targeted toward women, obviously, since most of the tips were how to get "a great haircut," or how to "pluck properly" and of course, "how to dress to meet a man."

Whats wrong with this picture?

These are all frivolous stereotypical outward appearance "tips" on how to make you more beautiful and more desireable for the opposite sex. That's bullshit. If you think you look good, chances are you'll feel good too, regardless of what the standards are to be a human being today.

And then I can't help but wonder, where are the people that A. write this B. read this or C. do this? And where are the men that actually take into consideration a woman's hair or tweezing habits? Do they actually exist? If so, allow me to reinforce some Social Darwinism and weave those undesirables out of the race.

Then it hit me. I was one of them. I was reading this. I was rewriting my standards to live up to the expectations of America. These were not my own expectations, nor any of the men I have encountered (save one, who goes unnamed.) I found myself wondering why I wasn't as pretty of desireable as say, the blonde across the room, scantily clad to show off her spray-on tan. (Again, I welcome a stereotype.) I was wondering why after 7 months of pure lonesomeness I am still single and still hating it? Enter Snowball Effect.

Then I came to my senses. It took some time but I have arrived. I'm single not because of what I look like, not because of how I act, but because it's just the way it is. I'm disregarding all of my feelings of destitution and hopelessness and replacing them with confidence and dignity. I don't need a man to measure my worth and I shouldn't expect whoever he is to. I measure my worth and I just threw the ruler out.

I'm not going to walk a step behind everyone else feeling I'm not as good, I will walk next to or in front of them, with my head held high and a smile scarred on my face. If they don't like it, fuck 'em, I don't need 'em. I need me, whole, happy and fulfilled and with that I could go farther than anyone who lives thier lives within social guidelines of what a woman should be.

A woman should be strong, independant and beautiful. And by beautiful I don't mean painful beauty treatments. We should be ourselves and that's what beautiful is.