If I was Wonder Woman

If Wonder Woman existed, she'd be loved and lusted after. She'd be surrounded by friends, some of them regular folk, some of them heroes like her. She'd have fans that hollered her name and put her poster on their walls. Her powers, her confidence, her beauty, men would want her. They'd be drawn to her certainty, her fierceness, her willingness to stand her ground and do what, in another age, only men were supposed to do.

But if Wonder Woman wasn't a hero, but rather just a regular woman, would those men want her? Or would her confidence scare them off? Would her fierceness, her certainty, drive them away? I think it would.

Super Woman could ask a man to dance and he'd fall onto the floor in his haste to accept. If she was a random pretty face in a random ballroom, he'd dance graciously and then turn a blind eye the remainder of the evening. Wonder Woman could ask a man out in a café and he'd give her his number and call her before she even reached her car. If she was just a woman intrigued, he'd politely take her number and never call. Worse than that, he might text a few times and then fade away. Wonder Woman could spy a man jogging down the street, chase him down and call him "striking" and "handsome" and he'd rush into a dinner invitation. If she was just a stranger, she'd creep him out. He'd bob his head, give thanks and jog into his departure.

I can remember when I was in my mid teens and attending homeschool dances. I got so tired of sitting in chairs, watching the slow songs come and go with a sick weight in my stomach. Guys asked girls to dance, sometimes with words, sometimes with just a proffered hand. I just sat and watched and wished and ached.

And then I'd had enough.

I started asking men to dance. (Okay, they were boys) I'd ask ten in one evening and they'd almost all say yes. We'd dance, chat and then return to our seats. This soon rippled out to affect the rest of my life. If I spied an attractive man in a café, I asked him out. If I saw an attractive man jogging, I chased him down. If my family and I were out to lunch and our server was hot, I flirted and suggested dinner. I was confident. I was sure of myself.

But I wasn't Wonder Woman.

Most of the time, they accepted my number, my dinner invitation, my hand to dance with. There'd be no calls though, no texts, no emails, no further effort following my initial one. Part of me wants to crawl back to my chair and just wait there like everybody else. People keep telling me that love is supposed to find YOU. If you stop searching for it, it'll enter your life all by itself. Friends tell me that I'm going about it all wrong, looking too hard, too intensely, holding my ground too firmly, but WHAT am I supposed to DO? I want to be in love again. I want to sleep curled around somebody whose breathing is better than music. I want to play footsy under the table and be scared of our shared future. I want to be attracted to somebody's subtleties, his wrists and the way his fingers curl into my hair, the way they might one day cradle a baby's head. I want to buy him presents. I want to plan our dates half the time and have that be enough for me, but not too much for him. I want to stop worrying that I'll fall in love before leaving the country, thus cancelling my travels. I want to stop worrying that I'll fall in love overseas and thus barring my coming home.

Am I supposed to be able to find this sitting in a chair, in the corner, waiting for someone to ask me to dance? Would Wonder Woman sit in a chair?

Do I have to be a superhero in order to wield the power of confidence?