Be Valuable...

Furthering my discussion the other day about how no one but your immediate family gives a shit about you, other than for what you can do or provide for them, is this post by JudgyBitch over at, well, JudgyBitch’s blog.

Essentially, she is making a pretty decent effort to lay bare the ingrained selfishness of a common Jezebel contributor in her discussion about relationships.  The advice given by the woman is not horrible, but it is filled with very selfish undertones, and that is what JudgyBitch is touching on in her post.

But that’s not what I’m talking about today, because I could give a shit about selfish feminists – in fact, I think the term is a bit redundant, because it seems to me like nearly all feminists are incurably selfish anymore, but that’s another topic for another day. 

What I’m talking about it the fact that JudgyBitch hits the high points of every point I tried to make in my rant about being valuable to others, and how that will lead to others valuing you and end up making you a much happier, much more content person. 

Look at her advice on how to make a relationship work:

spend some time thinking about what other people might value, and cultivate those things in yourself.

It isn’t really that difficult.  Your mate, on your first date, isn’t going to know or value you simply because you are “you.”  As I’ve established before, they don’t give a shit about you.  Not yet, anyway.  What it all boils down to is that like every single other person on Earth, they are evaluating your worth based on what you can do or provide for them.  Her advice, essentially, is to think hard about what it is that your date will desire from you, and then work hard to grow the parts of your person that will provide those things. 

Don’t think about it in terms of finding a mate for yourself – think of it in terms of making yourself a mate that others would want.  THEN worry about whether he or she will meet your needs. 

As with most things in life, if you voluntarily put others first, you’ll find that everything is much easier and more fulfilling, and that you’ll be putting yourself first in the process. 

First things first – nobody likes a mopey, emo, “forever alone” type, so stop whining and get out there and start making yourself better.