I’m comfortable in my own skin. I don’t know any better.

7 out of 10 online dating males would like to find this supposedly elusive woman, one who is “comfortable in her own skin,” not realizing that almost all of us are. When no one’s looking.  

Remember back to a time when the notions, choices, or opinions you had were so vulnerable that you might well retract one instantly for no other reason than someone else’s disapproval. Times when your first political notions were forming; or your first day on a new job, at a new office, needing so badly to win approval; or as an adolescent your first attempts at scoping out mates –

“That guy is so gorgeous!”

(After a brief pause, your friend responds disbelievingly…)

“You mean the one with the unibrow who looks like our geometry teacher?”

Here, you have a decision to make. Some possible choices include:

(a) “No, not him – the, um, guy standing way far in back of him, can you see…? Oh, I think he just left, damn.”

(b) “I was kidding!”

(c) “Yup, that’s the one.”

Any of the above responses increase the chance of creating an internal dichotomy (the true id). It’s like a biological feedback loop – the vulnerability has a synergistic reaction with the potential for negative peer feedback and suddenly saying one thing and meaning another doesn’t sound like such a bad idea. People tame and overcome this to varying degrees. We might even grow to see the benefit to our friend not wanting that guy or the geometry teacher; particularly when her rack is bigger.

But this same vulnerability and feedback happens with women’s bodies, and as they are constantly changing, first rapidly and then this drawn out process called Aging, there exists renewable insecurity and inherent vulnerability.

But we’re always comfortable in our own skin. When we’re perfectly alone with no fear of being observed, we are so very damn comfortable. This may not be true for every single woman, but I know I’m not alone. It takes a while to relax. It takes a good hour of walking around naked before I can bend over without guarding against the waist grab (don’t get me wrong, I’ve enjoyed it more often than I’ve thought ‘not again, I have to get to work, get off of me!’ but after living with a guy for years, does this flinch reaction ever completely subside?)

Even so, I don’t find it difficult to get good & comfortable, in every way, as often as I can.

To SoulSeeksMate, one online dater out of the zillion, in search for the woman who’s “comfortable in her own skin”: you’re mistaken. We’re not inherently uncomfortable, we have relegated you to the parallel universe of our internal dichotomy where we’re superficially ‘uncomfortable’ until you give us reason to believe that you’re as lucid as we are and you not only accept our bodies, but you adore them, just as we do.

I love my body. I feel arrogant, wrong, and vulnerable saying that – the ‘uncomfortable’ part of me does, at least, but I can honestly say I love it. I lucked out, I have one that society accepts with open arms – a non-enhanced, thin one – not fantabulous, but not a source of great distress to me. But regardless of how my body looks, or how any body looks, what a woman does and will adore, what she will need you, SoulSeeksMate, to adore, is the way that it feels. The way that you can make her feel. The way that you make her feel about it, when you drinks her in with your eyes, in one shot; when your lips distract her so your hands can steal her – and I know you’ve felt it before. That instant the woman in your arms feels adored, and she relaxes into you, pushes against you and you might later describe it as really clicking with her, or you might say we just fit.

 At last she could open up to you in the ways she usually does when she’s alone, because at last you convinced her that you were comfortable enough in her own skin for her to let you in.