Turn on your TV. You will quickly determine that you don't have what it takes to attract (and keep!) a man. You're too thick in the waist. You need a boob job. Your legs are covered in revolting cottage cheese that must be eradicated by all means possible. You're not girly enough. You're too girly. You don't talk enough. You talk too much. Those pathetic lines around your eyes date you like a day-old roast beef.
Turn off your TV.
The truth of the matter is that men, the desirable ones, don't care all that much about what you look like. They don't care if you're shy, or if you occasionally ramble on about nothing. Instead, they tend to gravitate toward women who possess a valuable, seemingly elusive, quality:
Happiness.
Oh, yes. Happy women attract men, small children, dogs, and guinea pigs like magnets. What man in his right mind wouldn't want to be around a happy woman?
Think I'm being silly? I'm not, and I'll prove it to you.
Like a lot of people, my weight used to fluctuate (although not so much anymore, thanks to regular dates with a NordicTrack). At one point I was 30 pounds heavier than I am today, and some friends had invited me out for dinner and drinks.
I certainly didn't relish the idea of being the fat chick at the bar, but I agreed to go. While trying on 3,000 outfits in an attempt to find something that made me look thin, I had an epiphany: I wasn't going to lose 30 pounds in two hours. My best bet was to forget about feeling fat and put a smile on my face. I set a goal to focus on whomever spoke to me, to look him or her in the eye, and to forget about myself.
Before I left the house, I brought to mind all the things I had going for me. Once I was out, I smiled sincerely at people and made a point of putting them at ease.
The result? One very attractive guy (whom I previously considered completely out of my league) asked me out that night, starting a fun and memorable summer romance.
After we'd broken up a few months later, I woke up with the symptoms of some sort of food allergy. I'd lost 25 pounds, but that didn't change the fact that my eyelids bulged like footballs. My jawline had virtually disappeared. Some evil food product (my bet is on bacon bits; they're not real bacon, you know!) had transformed me into a monster.
I had plans to attend a party that evening, so I immediately turned to the teabag-on-the-eyelid therapy touted by the beauty mags. It failed. I tried cucumber slices next. They also failed. I tried ice packs, frozen spoons, frozen peas. They failed. I tried drinking loads of lemon water and following it up with a pot of detoxifying herbal tea. No luck with that, either.
Clearly, looking my best was not in the cards. After spending the afternoon in the bathroom ridding myself of lemon water and tea, I set out for the party looking like Jabba the Hut from the neck up.
But, once again, I'd made a decision. Sure, I'd be the most physically repellent creature in the room, but why get bummed out about it? Wearing a little brown eye shadow to play down the lid bulge and a confident smile, I hit the party.
All night I banished the nagging temptation to head to the bathroom to poke at my swollen face. Instead, I listened to other peoples' stories. I laughed at their jokes (if they were funny, that is). I achieved my goal of having a great time.
Guess who scored a date with a good-looking, very funny guy?
If you want to attract guys, forget about what's wrong about you. Forget about what's wrong about your job, your boss, and your mother. Cultivate happiness. You'll find yourself attracting better friends, better men, and better circumstances.
Next time you're on your way out of the house and feeling like no man in the world would ever be interested in you, think about things that make you laugh. Bring to mind times in your life when you were truly happy.
Then put a smile on your face and walk out that door!
Terry Hernon MacDonald is the author of "How to Attract and Marry the Man of Your Dreams." Sign up for her free dating newsletter at http://www.marrysmart.com