As most single women know, there are a lot of rules for dating, and those “rules” are probably one of the reasons that I had 70 first dates. For instance, a girl should never call a fellow. In fact, when the fellow calls, the girl should ignore him for a time until he becomes more desperate. That’s just the way men are wired. They need to chase. They like to win. It’s a testosterone thing.

Wrong. Wrong, Wrong.

It was these so-called rules that about drove me to drink.  And trying to follow those rules - trying to play a part that wasn’t true to my nature was emotional torture, with extra heapings of misery and angst. It wasn’t until I was ready to abandon those rules that my life became sweeter, simply and above all, authentic.

When I stopped playing games, when I stopped following all the so-called advice, my life turned a corner. And when I found a man that I admired and respected, I chased him like a dog running after a bus.

Women do not need another “how to find a good man” book with more advice on how they should “act.” If you invest your best energies in being real and authentic, there’ll be no need to devote any energy to acting. My friend Pamela was right when she told me, “Exude confidence and peace and joy and men will sense it. Inner beauty really does magnetize.”

In Gloria Steinem’s book,  Revolution From Within, she wrote, “As many women can testify [getting a man to fall in love with you] is alarmingly easy, provided you’re willing to play down who you are and play up who he wants you to be” (p. 264).

She goes on to explain why her marriage, which had been based on playing a part that wasn’t true to herself, ultimately failed.

“Having got this man to fall in love with an inauthentic me, I had to keep on not being myself.”

Current dating wisdom is very focused on getting a man to fall in love with you, even if it means that you have to bind and gag your very soul. Such a relationship is not only unsustainable, but is usually misery for all parties involved, and always miserable for the woman who’s putting on the show. And these mental games take up an enormous amount of space on our emotional hard-drive. Been there, done that, and have the t-shirt, wet with tears.

If you want to glow with a warm, sincere luminosity that has the potential to be irresistible to all men with two brain lobes to rub together, visit that land (or that time) when you were real.

Remember the children’s story, The Velveteen Rabbit? The wizened old Skin Horse was the real hero in that story and he also had the secret to success in internet dating.

The Skin Horse told Rabbit, “Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

Beauty - true beauty - is about being real. It’s about becoming the real person that our Creator intended us to be.

Or as the poet Robert Browning said, “No need to make yourself over. Just make the best of what God has made.”

Be real. Be authentic. And ignore those rules.

Worked for me.

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When I finally abandoned all the "rules" for women and dating, in short, when I became authentic and real, I found true love.

The Velveteen Rabbit is a children’s book that tells the story of a little plush toy that dreams about becoming “real.” The real hero of this story is the old Skin Horse, who’d lived in the nursery longer than any of the other animals. He was the resident old soul and he was wise and kind and knew much about life and love and truth. The Velveteen Rabbit longed to become real and it was the wizened old Skin Horse that had the answers.

The Skin Horse told Rabbit, “Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

Beauty - true beauty - is about being real. It’s about becoming the real person that our Creator intended us to be. It’s just as Margery Williams said in The Velveteen Rabbit. “Real isn’t how you are made,” the skin horse told the Velveteen Rabbit in this meaningful story. Rather, “it’s a thing that happens to you” (when you are loved).

Conversely physical beauty - that beauty which is skin-deep - is about conformity.

“Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder,” was a Twilight Zone episode that told the story of Janet Tyler, a grotesquely ugly woman. Checking into the hospital for her 11^th and final plastic surgery, she desperately hoped this surgery would be successful. All prior surgeries had failed and in this modernistic society, there was a mandate to conform. Ugliness (as defined by their government) was a failure to conform and a criminal offense.

Down the hallway from Janet’s room, we hear Dear Leader giving a speech about “glorious conformity,” broadcast into the hospital waiting rooms via a large television set. The Hitler-esque voice booms with ominous messages about the importance of conformity. Differences, he tells the masses, are dangerous and will weaken their culture. Conformity is essential to their very survival.

A few days after the woman’s surgery, the medical staff slowly removes the bandages and we see the young woman’s face for the first time. She is a real beauty, a blonde bombshell, perfect in every way.

The doctors and staff gasp in horror. The operation was a failure - again. The camera pulls back and we can now see their faces. They’re hideous-looking creatures, with swinish faces and long snouts, oversized mouths and deep creases. They are the beautiful people in this alternate reality.

Next, Janet is sent away to a special village, where people like her go to live out their lives. A handsome man escorts her out of the hospital with a promise that she’ll now know how it feels to belong, and to be loved. (Originally airing on November 11, 1962, this episode was very well written and absolutely haunting.)

The “glorious conformity” of skin-deep beauty is a moving target and its standards are forever changing, following the lead of the rich and famous, and their copious leisure time. In earlier times, the beautiful people were fair-skinned, un-tanned, pleasingly plump and soft. Most “working women” of that same period toiled in the fields for hours every day, developing muscle mass, dark tans and calloused hands. When women went to work in windowless cubicles, stuck behind a desk for eight hours each day, the beautiful people became the ones with deep tans, hard bodies and sleek figures. Beauty follows wealth and leisure.

True beauty - authenticity - is not about the world’s standards but about rediscovering that kingdom of heaven that is within you. It’s not a moving target, but a changeless standard with its roots in the divine.

The above is from Rose’s book, The Ugly Woman’s Guide to Internet Dating. To read the rest, click here: