There’s A Right Way For A Guy To Challenge You

Sometimes he looks at you like he can’t believe you. He’s proud of you. He thinks you’re an incredible person. Not in a patronizing way, where he thinks it’s cute that you’re trying or it’s sweet that you want to do more with your life.

He just gives you a look that says he knows you can do anything that you want.

He looks at you like an equal. He doesn’t want you to be the final missing piece of his well put-together life or the girl that stands dutifully behind him while he’s conquering the world. He wants to be standing next to you, walking next to you, sleeping next to you, running next to you, doing everything next to you – because he realizes that there is something incredible about you.

He doesn’t think you’re the funniest girl or the smartest girl or the most successful girl that he knows. He just thinks you’re the funniest, or smartest, or most successful person he knows. He doesn’t look at you as someone who’s good at math, for a girl; someone who’s got an impressive job, for a girl; someone who’s amazingly artistic, for a girl. He just looks at you like you’re a person who can teach him something, lead him somewhere. Show him things he would have never seen otherwise.

He challenges you. Not in a painfully cheesy, steamy-romance-novel kind of way. He doesn’t get controlling or crazily jealous. But he challenges you when he knows you can do better. He treats you with love and respect, but he knows how to call you out when you’re being selfish or stubborn or a brat.

He challenges you to do more. He challenges you to go after things. He challenges you to not be mediocre. He doesn’t do this because he refuses to be with anyone who’s less than perfect. Rather, he challenges you because he knows how much you’re capable of.

He thinks you have something about you, something that means you are capable of doing or making or learning or creating something amazing. He challenges you because he’s not afraid to be with someone who might be, at times, more talented or successful or wealthy or admired than him.

He challenges you because, above all else, he loves you deeply and he knows you have so much potential and power inside of you. He loves you, an insane amount, and because he loves you, he’s not afraid to call you out or have uncomfortable conversations or tell you to stop making excuses and to do what it is that you’ve always wanted to do.

He ignites within you a fierce desire to make something of yourself. He looks at you and sees someone that he admires, loves, and believes in. He loves you for the person that you are, and because of that, he challenges you to reach even further to become the person that you truly want to be.