In my early 20s, I would go to a party or a bar with my flirting-able girlfriends and watch them get the guys, while I waited to be the DD.  I could put on my best dress, spend an hour on my hair and even make an awkward attempt at winking, but I would always be the one standing by the door with the keys.  Occasionally, some drunken guy, who decided to be my dance partner without asking, would approach me with his butt in the air and I would make a wild dash to the ladies lounge.

At the time, I only looked at it from a superficial perspective.  I was just as attractive, but for some reason, I was invisible (Would have been cooler, if I had Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak, at least).  Most often my own repellent was my sarcastic bravado; my attitude mask to keep from feeling rejected.  My subconscious attitude: if you don’t put yourself out there, then you don’t have to feel bad if no one ever sees you.  Oh, and throw in some bitchy, comic relief to have fun while in disguise.  I think I was even a vagina-blocker at times.

Our self-awareness is never instant, it always occurs far away in hindsight.  One of my biggest daydreams is to be like Benjamin Button and age backwards.  How great would that be?  All of the wisdom of today with the body of yesterday.  The cute, single-guy line would rival that of the iPhone 5 on release day (oh, wait, I’m married).  I would be a shoe-in on reality TV, piling up my winnings from shows like Big Brother or Survivor.

I don’t believe my confidence in my older age has anything to do with getting married.  Sure, after I got engaged and then married, my rings deterred the “normal” guys and sucked in the challenge-seekers like a super-magnet.  My subconscious need to protect my heart disappeared, so I became more attractive.  I would go out with single girlfriends and get more looks.

It wasn’t until I became a mother that I realized the holy grail of attraction: confidence.  And, if you weren’t nurtured to be confident, it’s harder to attain than a winning lottery ticket using statistics.  Okay, I’m not smart enough to attain a winning lottery ticket by using statistics, so I don’t really know how hard that is or whether it’s even possible…but you get the idea, right?

I’m pretty sure I digressed first and then grew more confident rapidly.  The first year of my daughter’s life, I was the least confident woman in the room, always worried I would do something wrong, like drop my baby on her head or let someone with leprosy handle her by mistake.  It wasn’t until she was a one-year-old that I got into my groove and achieved my MILF status.

Yes, I consider myself a MILF.  Before I had my daughter, was newly married and worked, I would dress in BCBG and Betsey Johnson, spend $$$ on my hair and make-up and workout consistently.  I worked just as hard at looking good, as I do as a mother now.  Okay, maybe it’s not a 1:1 comparison, but, again, you get the idea, right?

Now, I usually forget to wear make-up and my hair has been in my own version of a bun so long that I’m pretty sure it’s stuck that way.  But, yet, when I go out, I get more attention than I ever did before.  I think it’s because I don’t care and that exudes confidence.  I think it’s because I AM more confident.  Being a mother feels like an achievement and I feel like I’m a pretty good one.

And, for those of you thinking, “More men are staring at you because you probably smell and look disheveled”, please let me live in my own little bubble and believe it’s because I’m a confident MILF.