The depths of my crushes know no bounds.

I’ve developed them on fictional characters, real life boyfriends, female friends when they wear that really nice dress on a certain night out, the local bartender, my history teacher, my high school boyfriend (who was in the history class with me), and everyone in between.

Crushing on people is a sport, be they fictional or be they real.

To be fair though, some of my crushes have seemed a bit off the wall, and I wasn’t entirely sure why I had them. For example, my latest crushes: Conan O’Brien, Russell Brand, Austin Powers, Logan Paul (oof) and Barstool Sport’s “Tommy Smokes”.

And it wasn’t until I sat down at The Standard one morning and had a quiet breakfast with myself that I realized I do have a ‘type’.

I develop crushes on people who are happy to make a fool of themselves.

I think that a willingness to try something - and fail happily - is the largest sign of confidence you could ever find.

Maybe it’s because I grew up performing improv, and one of the necessities of improv is putting yourself out there, without knowing what will happen next. Maybe it’s because risking something (even if you might fail) is a sign of an entrepreneurial spirit and that just attracts women in general. Maybe it’s because Austin Powers has mojo, baby and I’m drawn to him for that!

There’s a difference between bravado and confidence, and I think a lot of people confuse the two.

Compare Austin Powers to Ryan Gosling’s character in Crazy, Stupid, Love.

Sure, Ryan Gosling in that movie is hot. He is suave, self-assured and has bravado coming out of his perfect ass. He’s very swoon worthy.

But I like to imagine situations like this: what would both characters do if they tripped while walking? What if they gave a wedding speech and their voice cracked?

I imagine Ryan Gosling would pretend he didn’t trip, and pretend that his voice didn’t crack. Austin Powers, on the other hand, would make a joke about how he’s “falling over himself for me” when he tripped. And when his voice cracked during the wedding speech he would insist that his balls have, in fact, dropped, and he can prove it to anyone who links up with him after the wedding.

Isn’t Austin just more fun? Doesn’t he reek of more confidence?

Here are some little things that regular guys do that get me very interested because it shows how confident they are:

Wear a stupid or very over-the-top Halloween costume
Sing Karaoke horribly
Ask a server what a certain dish or drink is because they’ve never heard of it before
Perform Improv comedy
Stand up and wave to you when you walk into a restaurant

These are all very small things that - to me - show that someone is unafraid to be embarrassed.

Let’s take being lost while driving as an example. It’s such a common troupe that men refuse to ask for directions when they are lost. It’s obviously very unsexy to be lost. But I think rolling down the window and shouting “I’m lost! I’m beyond fucking lost! I have zero clue of where I am at all!!” and then asking a local sheep herder for directions is a lot sexier than continuing to drive and not know where you’re going.

The truth of it is, life is messy. Weird and gross and embarrassing and horrible things happen all the time.

I want to be with someone in life who will dive into the gross and proudly shout “this is gross!” rather than gingerly stepping into the gross and saying “let’s pretend this gross thing never happened”.

A similar vein of this confidence is knowing who you are - flaws and all - and accepting it. Conan O’Brien is the first person to talk about how tall and gangly he is. Check out the below clip of him talking about it in detail:

Before this video, I never would have thought someone loudly saying “you’re inbred” could be so confident. And yet, somehow it comes across that way! Because Conan just has that not afraid to be embarrassed confidence.

It’s something absolutely wonderful, and in general, I just think authenticity is wildly attractive.

So, there we have it! Logan Paul, Conan O’Brien and hell even Zeke from Bob’s Burgers all have me very interested.

So to all my male readers out there (it’s only 31% but…still…maybe) now you know how to get my attention. Wear a horribly stupid Halloween costume, wave to me across from a crowded bar and take me to karaoke!

Until the next one,
S

I'm attracted to people who confidently embarrass themselves

I develop crushes on people who are happy to make a fool of themselves.

I think that a willingness to try something - and fail happily - is the largest sign of confidence you could ever find.

I want to be with someone in life who will dive into the gross and proudly shout “this is gross!” rather than gingerly stepping into the gross and saying “let’s pretend this gross thing never happened”.