Let me begin by sharing my experience. I was bullied thorought my entire childhood and pre-teens because of my appearance, and now that I'm older I'm seeing the impact this had on me.
You see, I was a very ugly kid, and man, I had it rough! I was made fun of by kids and adults ever since I can remember because of my moustache (which I've had since I was three years old), and later on because of my glasses, my crooked teeth, and bushy hair (damn, I really had the full "ugly girl pack", huh?). In my pre-teens, I went through what practically every "ugly" girl goes through: I had guys asking me for dates and telling me they loved me as a joke or a bet. It was awful. All I wanted at the time was to be insanely beautiful, to have all guys on the planet at my feet, and to have twenty boyfriends at the same time, just like the girls from my class! I didn't quite think about anything else.
When I was fourteen, I decided I had enough. I started waxing my whole body, taking care of my hair, got braces and contacts. Everything changed. Guys now saw me the way I had always wanted them to, and when a guy first showed genuine interest in me, I had found a new addiction: male attention.
From that point, I became obssessed with any guy who would give me the slightest bit of attention, and let myself be used (not for sex though, I never went THAT far) and did the impossible to get validation. This completely disrupted my evergy and my peace, and went on until last year, when things got too much out of control. I was laying in my last ex-boyfriend's bed, almost falling asleep with him beside me. He thought I was already asleep, and tried to take my clothes off. God knows what he could've done if I hadn't got up immediately and left his house. That was my wake up call. this was just what i needed to get out if that attention-seeking mindset. I found the courage to break up with him a few days later, and not once did I look back.
I am so much happier now that i realized I don't need some asshole to fulfill my life. I wake up, I go through my day and fall asleep not thinking once about men. However, you don't need to go through something drastic to overcome the craving for male attention. Here are a few things that will help:
First of all, you need to acknowledge the problem. If you're reading this, you probably have done that already. Great job! Acknowledging a problem is the key to solve it. Now, how to actually solve it?
Get a life. You're only thinking about guys and/or talking to them because you 1) don't have anything better to do or 2) you have better stuff to do, but choose to waste your time with the male species instead. In the first case, find something better to do! Become busy! start focusing on school/your career, sign up for the gym or a sport, go jogging/walking, channel your thougts to journaling and/or creative art work, do voluntary work, etc. You will find something that suits you and makes you happy. In the second case, remove/block him from your social media, or delete your social media, if you're too shy to do the first one. Doing this helped me a lot! At first it was hard, but it was totally worth the effort: I got to focus more on school, got rid of my social media addiction, and even started playing guitar again. You can do it too! :D
Delete all photos and videos (profile picture included) from social media. In fact, delete your social media accounts for best results, unless you need them for something else. If you want to get rid of your addiction to male attention, you have to cut the problem by its root. If you don't have any photos or videos online, the amount of guys interacting with you will decrease a lot.
Become a nightmare for men. Be noisy, be bossy, be a fucking menace. Put men in their place. How do you exactly do that? for example, if a man approaches you, tell him that you're not interested. Id he insists, start barking and screaming at him or pretend you're a horror movie creature and start running after him like one (I actually had to do both a couple of times, and let me tell you that it's very effective). Even if you're still not confident in yourself, setting boundaries is something that radiates confidence. If there is one thing that men hate, it's confident women. Trust me, no man will bother your peace.
There's also the working on your confidence and self-esteem part, which is equally important, of course. But that's something that takes a long time to be achieved, and the tips I just gave you are much quicker and practical. this doesn't mean, however, that you should neglect it. Doing all of the stuff above will, themselves, help to boost your confidence.
Thanks for reading!
-Bia
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