Dear Emily,

I am a single 42-year-old businesswoman and live in a comfortable place of my own, alone. I should be envied by women my age who are trapped in jobs laboring for other people, but they shouldn't.

I am short, fat, not at all attractive, and everyone thinks I am a lesbian by the way I act and dress. But I am not. I am all-woman, waiting to be with a man who will love me for me and have a life with me.

Someone broke my heart years ago. He took advantage of me, my money and whatever else he could get from me. I lost interest in taking care of myself since then, thus, my weight problem.

It's women now who come to me, wanting to take care of me. But I am not into women, and I haven't given up hope of finding the man for me. I am even thinking of freezing my eggs so I can start a family in the future. Is it only beauty and youth men look for? -RM

Answer:

Aren't you being too hard on yourself just because there's not a man interested in you now? Do you think everybody sees you that badly? Is that going to be the be-all and end-all of your existence?

Do you know how many millions of women would kill to be in your manless situation now? Are you still one of those who take as bible truth the hype perpetuated by the glossies and Hollywood on fairy-tale romances?

Believe in the saying that no matter how thin you slice an apple, there will always be two sides to it. And some men, despite their one-track minds, do like women who think, who care, who are kind, however "unattractive" they look.

You may feel horribly alone and lonely, and probably very unlucky. But there are millions of unhappy women-rich women bored to death in their dead-end marriages, battered women who see death as their only escape, women enslaved in relationships who become murderers, women who sell their souls because of poverty, and other horror stories that fill up newspapers.

They'd give an arm and a leg to be in your place. You have the freedom to go into any relationship, the freedom to buy love if you so choose, the freedom to shut the door or shut off the whole world if you want.

You're holding your life in your hands-mold it in whatever shape or form-and you don't even know it!

Get out of this mind block and stop looking for that elusive man to make you happy! Forget yourself for a while and pay forward every single lucky break that came into your life. They are more liberating and fulfilling than just finding that singular person. Volunteer to causes you can be excited about, or start doable and manageable projects that you're knowledgeable about.

It's nice to be hugged and loved and all that jazz. But after the fever dies, which happens soon enough, that all-too-familiar void sets in and the whole rigmarole starts again.

Pull yourself up and put yourself together. Lose weight if you so wish and make yourself pretty for no one else but you. Then go and conquer the world on your own terms. Happiness starts from within you-not from without.

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