I know you’re drawn to the guys who are confident.

It’s not a bad thing. Honestly, it’s a good thing that one of the most driving factors that determines your attraction to someone is that they are a self assured human being. Maybe you spent years not being confident in yourself, so you sought out to make up for what you thought you lacked. Maybe you are an incredibly confident person yourself and you feel you need someone who matches that same level. Either way, you’re starting to notice a pattern in the guys you’ve dated/been attracted to; they all had solid amounts of confidence running through their veins.

You know, I think sometimes we say confidence is key. But what if it wasn’t?

What if instead of dating the guy who was confident, you dated the guy who gets nervous around you?

I know, it sounds odd at first, because it doesn’t make a lot of sense. Why date a nervous wreck when you could date a guy who is confident in himself?

If a guy is sure of himself, that’s a good thing. Yet all too often we can mistake confidence for cockiness. Self-assurance for arrogance. And sometimes it takes too long to spot them. They approach you and stare into your eyes and say all the right things that make you melt into a puddle, and you know, it feels lovely doesn’t it? It’s nice to have someone walk right up to you and say things in such a straight forward way. Yet then it hits you that this arrogance, this string of flirtacious lines tossed in your direction is something that came so incredibly easy to them.

Let me tell you, when someone likes you, then they are a little rattled by being around you.

Even people who are self-confident still feel the nervousness and the butterflies when they see the person they are crushing on. There is always that hope to impress, the intent to try and say the right things and hoping they don’t get tongue tied. We all go a little crazy when it comes to love and like and everything in between; love is a complicated emotion that we can’t always glide our way through with smirks and one liners.

So maybe you should date the guy who trips over his words a little when he talks to you- not because he is incompetent, but because he is wanting to say the right things to impress you and he doesn’t want to mess this chance up. Date the guy who tries to make eye contact with you, and he manages to for a few seconds, but then looks down.

Not because he can’t stand looking at you, but quite the opposite.

When a guy is saying everything to you with ease, without even blinking or thinking twice about it, it can only leave you to wonder how often he has rehearsed these lines on other pretty girls. When a guy makes eye contact with you and doesn’t break away, you can only wonder if his intentional staring is only picturing you naked. You can only wonder if this is a game and you are a prize- a game where he wins and you lose.

Honestly, you should date the guy who acts like he has something to lose when it comes to you.

That while he is secure in your affection for him, he also knows that if he decided to start treating you less than what you deserve, then he knows he would risk you walking away, and it’s the last thing he wants. He doesn’t view you as today’s thing that he can easily replace tomorrow- he actually gets nervous and anxious at the thought of you not being with him the next day.

So maybe you should date the guy who isn’t afraid to admit that you make him nervous, because darling, he’s not just going to let you go when the next pretty thing comes along. He’s going to hold onto you because he recognizes what he has. And honestly, that is what you deserve. Someone confident enough to hold onto the good thing he’s found, but nervous enough to want to keep you every day.

Because you deserve that, darling. You honestly do.