how you see me

Guys, let me give you a clue about us girls: good or bad, whether we want to or not, most of us spend a good amount of time wondering what you think of us.

I wonder what my dad thinks of me. I want him to look at his little girl and be proud, to know that the daughter he raised is not just your typical average "good girl."

I wonder what my brother thinks of me. I want him to be excited that he gets to be stuck with me for the rest of his life :)

I wonder what the guys I pass every day that I don't know think of me. I want them to be able to tell there's something different in the way I present myself to the world.

I wonder what the guys in my classes (since there are so flippin many of them) think of me. I want the way I look and dress and act and speak to be respectable and representative of the person God intended me to be.

I wonder what my boyfriend thinks of me. I want him to know he can trust me and be proud of who I am.

I wonder what my friends think of me. I want them to be able to say that they respect my opinions and value my friendship.

Bottom line--I care about what you think. But only because if I try to look at myself through your eyes, I can learn a lot about who I am and what I need to change. I tend to think about how you see me because I know what I would like for you to see. And as a female who is learning how you guys see us, I am even more determined to never be anything but confident and respectable in the eyes of the men in my life. I don't want to flirt all the time or be too touchy, be overly needy or dependent, dress in a way that makes the visual battle guys fight any harder, find my worth in any relationship, be shallow or selfish, think I need to put lots of effort into how I look, or get jealous of girls who are prettier than I am. I spent a lot of time caring far too much about the world's perception of me. Now I only want to care if your experiences with me reflect the person I am striving to become.