Little One, it is not, has never been, and never will be your job to “keep him interested."

Dear Cutie-Pie,

Recently, your mother and I were searching for an answer
on Google. Halfway through entering the question, Google
returned a list of the most popular searches in the world.
Perched at the top of the list was “How to keep him interested."

It startled me. I scanned several of the countless articles
about how to be sexy and sexual, when to bring him a beer
versus a sandwich, and the ways to make him feel smart
and superior.

And I got angry.
Little One, it is not, has never been, and never will be your
job to “keep him interested."

Little One, your only task is to know deeply in your soul—in
that unshakeable place that isn't rattled by rejection and
loss and ego—that you are worthy of interest. (If you can
remember that everyone else is worthy of interest also, the
battle of your life will be mostly won. But that is a letter for
another day.)

If you can trust your worth in this way, you will be attractive
in the most important sense of the word: you will attract a
boy who is both capable of interest and who wants to
spend his one life investing all of his interest in you.
Little One, I want to tell you about the boy who doesn't
need to be kept interested, because he knows you are
interesting:

I don't care if he puts his elbows on the dinner table—as
long as he puts his eyes on the way your nose scrunches
when you smile. And then can't stop looking.
I don’t care if he can't play a bit of golf with me—as long as
he can play with the children you give him and revel in all
the glorious and frustrating ways they are just like you.

I don’t care if he doesn't follow his wallet—as long as he
follows his heart and it always leads him back to you.
I don’t care if he is strong—as long as he gives you the
space to exercise the strength that is in your heart.

I couldn't care less how he votes—as long as he wakes up
every morning and daily elects you to a place of honor in
your home and a place of reverence in his heart.

I don't care about the color of his skin—as long as he paints
the canvas of your lives with brushstrokes of patience, and
sacrifice, and vulnerability, and tenderness.

I don't care if he was raised in this religion or that religion
or no religion—as long as he was raised to value the sacred
and to know every moment of life, and every moment of
life with you, is deeply sacred.

In the end, Little One, if you stumble across a man like that
and he and I have nothing else in common, we will have
the most important thing in common:

You. Because in the end, Little One, the only thing you should
have to do to “keep him interested" is to be you.
Your eternally interested guy,
Daddy