Seeing him was like being struck with a gentle hammer, or having a stone dropped straight through the pond surface of myself. He was golden and beaming, sweetness streaming out of his perfect face. Throughout my teenage years I’d pined for a teen novel construction of what my ideal mate would look like: taller than me but not by much, slim but strong, thick wavy hair, ready smile. Now here he was, but better, with an accent and olive skin and, remarkably, impossibly, his eyes mirrored my own delighted shock, each of us suddenly shot through with that rare immediate affinity, the effortless, unexpected connection that can sustain a person for days, months, years, with the simple hope of brushing it again.

— Bookmark

I don’t find every single person on the planet attractive; why should I worry about whether or not every single person on the planet finds me attractive in return?

I wouldn’t want to give up the positive opinions of those people that matter. But I wouldn’t want just anyone’s opinion to matter either. That’s kind of the trick of the thing. It’s easy to say that the only thing that counts is what’s going on INSIDE of a person. It’s not as popular to say that, well, the outside counts, too. It just doesn’t count the way the world wants it to count. And all of that inside stuff has an impact on how the outside stuff gets perceived as well.

Here’s the plainest I can say it (and maybe I should just delete all of that wordiness above and come right down to this): External validation is nice. But it cannot be the only thing you have or you have nothing. Because there is no way to make everyone appreciate your outside no matter what it looks like. External validation can be nice; it can also be creepy and scary and full of pressure and expectation. It isn’t the end-all, be-all of worth, not for anyone but especially not for women. Let’s reprioritize the external validation, move it way down on the list. And if someone appreciates your outer package, let’s make sure it’s YOUR outer package, not one you’ve ripped out of a magazine because you think that’s what people want from you, because you think that’s the only way you can be acceptable.

— Marianne Kirby at The Rotund (via rkb)

Why doesn’t anyone talk about the fact that stretch marks are not at all confined to pregnancy? I first got mine on the inside of my knees when I was in the midst of an adolescent growth spurt, my lengthening legs hoisting me up to 5’8” by the time I was 13. And men have them too, on their backs and shoulders and hips. Not only fat men, not only tall men. Men also have cellulite, as do some of the most petite and fit women I’ve ever met. Here’s the big question: so what?

— Gift Horse

Obviously women come to see sex as the sum of their worth because society tends to do the same, while men aren’t forced to struggle with the same debased equation. […] This is the ugly underbelly of being a distractingly good-looking woman: You have to feel pretty good about who you are on the inside to stay focused on it when most of the people around you just can’t shut up about how hot you are.

— Heather Havilresky