Things I’ve Learned While Roaming the Earth

I’ve always been a romantic. For a long time, I tried to discover just what it was I wanted out of love, what kind of girl I was hoping to find.  At last, I can safely say that the one thing I’m searching for is someone whom I genuinely and deeply admire.  Most people, it seems, just want to find someone with a good sense of humor, someone they can relate to and have fun with.  I want something more.  I want someone who I admire deeply.  But what does that mean exactly?  What does it mean to admire someone deeply?

For my own part, it seems as though I most admire things that are foreign to me – character traits and qualities that I don’t possess. For this reason, I admire courage and boldness, because I don’t believe myself to be a bold or courageous man.  When I began to think about this, I realized something very interesting.  As I pondered the notion of what it meant to admire someone deeply, I realized that I greatly admire femininity in general.  The most primary reason why is because femininity has always been a foreign concept to me. Now I don’t want anyone to take what I just said the wrong way. I am definitely not a stereotypical macho man who thinks that unless you spend 5 hours in a gym everyday, you’re a girly man. However, I have always tended to be very masculine. Doing manual labor is my favorite type of job, I love almost any sport I try, I love being in good physical shape, and I absolutely can’t live without adventure.

The reason I say this isn’t to sound egotistical, but rather to explain why I admire femininity so greatly.  I’ll give you an example. Being someone who doesn’t waver very much emotionally, I’ve been in cases where I’ve admired women who are very open and comfortable being emotional. Not long ago, I was having a conversation with a girl about something difficult that was happening to her, and during our conversation, she began to cry. I remember being struck in that moment, thinking she was an amazing person, trusting me enough to be that vulnerable in front of me.

The conversation continued and I tried to say what I could to cheer her up, thinking that nothing I could say would bring her any consolation.  But to my great surprise, she let me cheer her up. I prayed with her and encouraged her and she quickly began to laugh and smile. I found myself admiring her greatly, mostly because I knew that it would take great effort for me to do what she had just done.

It what then that I first began realizing that I wanted to find a girl whom I could genuinely admire deeply.  Another thing that I admire is feminine beauty. What I mean is this: when a girl is beautiful and she truly knows it, and humbly basks in that knowledge; when she knows that her beauty is worthy of admiration, and shyly and humbly basks in that knowledge, that is something that I greatly admire.  I admire it because that is something I will never know; finding humility and thankfulness through beauty.

Hopefully at this point I have clearly articulated my desire to find someone whom I clearly admire.  But now I want to transition to the next level. Through pondering this idea, I’ve come to an interesting truth. More and more I have discovered that my ability to genuinely admire a woman is somewhat linked and dependent on what type of man that I myself am. Being the old-fashioned romantic that I am, I’ve always fallen for girls who are sweet, caring, shy, and willing to be vulnerable emotional. Because I have always striven towards masculinity, I find that more and more I admire femininity.

Once I realized this truth about admiration, I felt suddenly free. I have always known that I wanted to find a girl that I can genuinely and deeply admire. But what I didn’t realize until recently was that I could influence my ability to admire a girl by the kind of man that I become. It is almost a direct correlation that the more I strive toward being an honorable man — courageous, bold, wise — the more I will admire those complementary qualities of femininity — beauty, kindness, emotion.  Who I become will dictate who I will love, and in that there is freedom.  Thank you for reading.