Like most women, I always thought that becoming more attractive to men was about improving my appearance.  As a teenager I was desperate to lose weight, get the perfect haircut, and wear the styles in the latest magazines.  I wanted boys to pay attention to me, and I knew that the girls to whom they DID pay attention had obvious physical assets.  It wasn't about being smart or interesting or nice: it was about looks.

What I didn't know then is that most boys grow up.  The hormone-driven stage of youth, made anxious by popularity and social validation, creates entirely different creatures than the mature workplace of later years.

Luckily for women, most men seek entirely different characteristics than boys.  They learn to appreciate emotional warmth, depth, and generous loving.  Although they still turn their heads to watch beautiful women pass, they're mature enough to appreciate a beautiful form without having to possess it.

Not all men grow up, of course. 😉  We all know playboys at the age of 40 who haven't yet learned the pleasure of settling down with one woman.   Those men still tend to be attracted to looks, seeking out what is new, different, and unobtainable.

Yet instead of realizing that immature men are the exception, not the rule, many of us women remain stuck in the high school mentality, believing that ALL men—not just the immature ones—seek nothing more than a pretty face.  We believe that we must dress sexy, look sexy, and act sexy for men to feel attracted to us.  And when our bodies rebel (as not all of us were made to look like models) we bury our heads in despair.  We think that we'll never be able to attract men.

Guess what?  The good news is that although you may be unable to attract immature men (who are focused on superficial appearances above all things) you may be just what a mature man is looking for.

Mature men seek women who are fun to be with, around whom they feel they can be themselves.  The mature man realizes that if he is going to spend the rest of his life with a woman, he needs to have more discerning criteria than good looks.  A woman who is in touch with her body, even though it isn't perfect, is preferable to a woman who goes into hysterics if her hair or clothes aren't perfect.  A woman who is uninhibited, passionate, and loves life is preferable to an aloof, cool woman who lives life on display.

For the man who looks beneath the surface, a woman is an entire package: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.  He must fall in love with all of those parts before he'll invite her to spend a lifetime with him.  What this means for us is that developing ourselves mentally, spiritually, and emotionally is just as important as perfecting our appearance.  What we look like is just a quarter of the entire package.

Best of all, if you start focusing on developing yourself spiritually, mentally, and emotionally, you'll find that you reap enormous personal benefits.  Your life will be happier.  You'll feel more content.  You may even find that male attention seems less important to you.

So the next time that you feel overlooked because of your appearance, or you're having an "ugly" day, just put on your most beautiful smile and realize that the only men who'll be ignoring you are the ones you don't want anyway. 

When I first started working at 000Relationships.com, I wondered who the women were who wrote in to thank Sarah Paul (author of "How to Be Irresistible to Men") from all over the world.  Were they teenagers wanting to have greater success with boys?  Were they women in their thirties getting ready to marry?  Or were they like my female friends: lovely, intelligent women of all ages and ethnicities who wanted to understand their relationship with men better?

Before I came to 000Relationships.com, I finished a master's degree in writing in the UK.  I'd spent my last summer there living in a flat with an English friend, Eve.  Eve was a mother, university student, and recent divorcé.  Mid-life, she was starting over again.  Yet instead of feeling filled with fear for being on her own for the first time since she was a teenager, Eve embraced her new life.  She tackled classes with the same youthful spirit she employed playing with her children.  She dated, went clubbing, started the gym, and worked with the elderly in her spare time.

The sheer amount of activity in her life staggered me.  I'd established a simple habit of working on my thesis, working out, and seeing friends, and that was enough for me.  But Eve met men everywhere: on her routes, at clubs, on the net.  Her bubbly, vivacious attitude warmed men tired of rejection on the clubbing circuit.  They could always count on Eve's laughter and smile.

I learned so much that summer about men and about the power of a positive attitude.  Even though Eve faced greater challenges than I did, she kept a positive outlook in public and let her joy radiate outwards even when inside she was feeling sorrowful.  I knew that her divorce and being away from her children while at university was difficult for her, but she never let that be an excuse to doubt her life or the importance of what she was doing.  She reached out to all of us in love and kept her anger at the divorce firmly directed at the person who was responsible for it, not at life in general.

Over the past year at 000Relationships.com, I learned that many of the women wanting more information on how to have better relationships and attract the right men were not teeny-boppers or inexperienced.  They were women like Eve.

Amazing, incredible women.

Women who knew that being good at relationships is not a skill we are born with.

Women who knew that the path to excellence in anything, including relationships, is research, practice, and living the message.

These women had had long-term relationships before, and this time around they wanted to know how to do it right. They had so much love to give men, if they could only get over the shields and defenses they'd built up from previous rejections.

I have a message for all those women out there who turn to us or to other relationship experts seeking the magic key to love.

There is hope.  Never ever believe there's not hope.  Happiness lies ahead for you, if you can only quiet that nagging voice inside that tells you to doubt.  That voice is wrong.  Don't doubt.  Believe in yourself.  Believe in your potential for happiness.

Women have found the man of their dreams at 17, at 29, at 44 or 75.  There is no age cut-off date for love.

There are so many men dreaming of love right now, just as you are dreaming of love.  They want you to love them as much as you want them to love you.  If you can learn to give the men in your life love right now (friends, family members, the bus driver, the postman, even strangers!), then love will be given back to you in abundance, as much as you ever dreamed of.

That's a law of the universe.  What you give is what you shall receive.  A person who is stingy with love (which I know you are not) will find that love rarely knocks on their door.

Have faith, hope, and love.  No matter what your situation, how old you are, how much time you have, there is always a door in your heart on which love can come knocking.