Since a very young age, I was taught that I didn’t exist for the consumption of men and that I was a valuable and worthy individual outside of the male gaze. When I have to interact with a man or I see a man looking in my direction, what is going on in their brain is of no concern to me. I simply do not care what men think! That is, unless they’re thinking “Daaaaaaaamn!!!!” when they walk by me.

Some women feel the need to cater their lives, their habits, even the way they speak and act to the whims of the men around them, lest they are subjected to a man feeling some type of way about them. But I’m different. I cannot make this clear enough: at no point do I feel stressed, pressed, or interested in what any single man on earth thinks of me, with the exception of the men who are looking at me and thinking “Seriously, goddamn, look at her: that body is a blessing on this earth.” Those men and those men only can tell me what they think of me and I will accept it.

Now, don’t get me wrong. My decided lack of interest in the opinion any man has about me doesn’t mean that I look or behave like some derelict in public. On the contrary, I love to look fashionable, I love to wear makeup, and I love to be charming and funny and feminine. But I don’t dress up to be noticed by men, I don’t put on makeup to be admired by men, and I certainly don’t have my strong and independent personality to be appealing to men. I don’t want or need to hear any man’s opinion on how I present myself. Of course, if that opinion is “Oh damn da-damn damnn daaaaaaamn,” then that would probably be fine for a man to tell me if he wants to.

I’m sure plenty of men have had plenty of opinions on me. And I bet they range from, “Wow, who dresses like such a slob to go to Dunkin’ Donuts,” to “Aw, that amazing woman is helping that old man cross the street with no hesitation. She must be such a good person.” And while that last one is a great opinion to have of me, I still wouldn’t wanna hear it because, again, I do not care what men think of me if they are not specifically thinking about how stunningly beautiful and without flaw my face, body, and aura are. That is the only case. For the record, I did help that old man.

As one of my idols, RuPaul Andre Charles, once said: What other people think of you is none of your business. In my case, what men think about me is not only none of my business, but also nothing I even care to be interested in, as long as what they think about me isn’t “OH MY SWEET JESUS DAAAAAAMN! LOOK AT THAT FINE SPECIMEN!,” because then maybe I’d wanna know. To be clear, I wouldn’t want any man to ever say that to me, I’d just wanna somehow know that’s what they’re thinking.