letting go of male validation

how being yourself and stopping looking for approval is the ultimate confidence boost

I walked past a pub full of “lads” yesterday (put an Irish bar in a holiday destination and the Brits will GATHER) and for the first time in my life, I felt pretty confident that I could “pull” one of them (pls forgive me for my use of the word pull).

This may not be very surprising to you. You may think - well Kate, you’re hot as fuck (why thank you, reader), and this was a bar full of drunk straight men. So why wouldn’t you be able to attract one of their attentions?

Well, because I convince myself that no one would ever be attracted to me, and that I am incapable of making a move on anyone. But I am starting to TRULY realise that that’s all absolute bullshit (I knew it was logically, but that doesn’t mean I believed it deep down).

I think it’s no coincidence that this happened just after the recent full moon, where I decided I would be letting go of seeking validation, particularly from men, and particularly about my appearance.

Recently I have been thinking a lot about how to get people’s attention- through my body language and energy for example. So it’s unsurprising that this has been leaking over into how I view my appearance, especially when my flirting research has included observing and analysing other people.

Why are people approaching my friends but not me? Well, it must be because I’m ugly as fuck. Let me dress how I believe men think is sexy, and then maybe they will hit on me too. Only then will I be worthy and happy in myself.

What a horrible paragraph. I vow that this will never come out of my mouth (or be typed by my hands) again. But we all know this is how we have been wired to think, practically since we exited the womb.

Beauty standards are pervasive, and despite having worked on dismantling them in my brain, it would be impossible to think I was completely rid of their clutches.

You don’t just “finish” the constant self growth and learning that life demands, although I definitely sort of thought I kinda had in this case. At least enough that I wouldn’t let myself start looking for that kind of validation so easily.

I hadn’t realised I was slipping back into old patterns until I started feeling like absolute shit because I thought no one fancied me.

So, when I accepted my worth is not based on who I “attract”, and decided to let go of validation from the people I am trying to flirt with, I think something started to shift in my brain. Hence why I had no issue feeling confident that someone would be attracted to me back at the Irish bar.

I am yet to master the confidence in the actual act of flirting with someone, but this has taught me that you also need to have the confidence to know that people will want to flirt in return. That you are worthy of being flirted with (everyone is, obviously, but my brain disagrees when it comes to me). If I assume no one is attracted to me, then it’s a non starter.

But I have genuinely started to believe that people are. I notice people checking me out. A guy from a local bar has been staring at me for weeks, and recently he gave us free food and drinks and was 100% flirty with me. He had a girlfriend though (GASP), but instead of thinking, oh I was wrong. I was like - WHY is he flirting with me then?!?!?!

This is not me saying “you need to love yourself first before loving someone else” bla bla bla. I have spent years trying to do that. And it IS super important to know your value and not settle for less than you deserve. But if you don’t put everything into practice as you go, you will live your life waiting to be fully “ready” or “healed” and it will pass you by.

Flirting is always going to be a bit about validation, because it’s nice when someone fancies you. But going forward I need to focus on being myself and knowing my worth either way.

From now on, I’m going to aim to flirt through the lens of having fun and nice interactions with other people, rather than to prove I am worthy of another person’s attention.

After all, we are all just silly little humans wanting to connect with each other, and flirting seems like a great way to do that <3