It can be hard to let yourself be vulnerable in a new relationship. As hard as it can be, opening up is the only way you can truly love someone and let them love you. So next time you’re thinking about bearing your soul to a special person in your life, consider taking the bravest and most intimate step of all: Letting them see the humiliating boardwalk caricature of you that’s hanging at your parents’ house.
There’s probably no time in a women’s life more vulnerable than puberty, and for some reason, this is the precise moment your parents chose to have caricatures of the whole family done on the Atlantic City boardwalk and now, 18 years later, that drawing is still hanging in your parents’ living room. Now is the time to open that door and show someone the enormous nose the artist gave you for some weird reason, even though you actually have a pretty normal-sized nose.
And now it’s time to take the leap and show this weird hand drawn snapshot of your worst years to the man you’re falling in love with – because vulnerability is nothing if it isn’t a badly drawn image of your weird adolescent boobs.
What could possibly prove to someone that you’re in for the long haul more than a caricature where you’re on rollerblades, holding a tennis racket and wearing a t-shirt that says “Broadway Diva” because those were your interests at that time? Let him peer deep into your soul by allowing him to feast his eyes on this mess of an artwork. This is intimacy.
Point out the exciting details he may not have noticed, like the fact that there are little music notes coming out of your mouth because you told the artist that you “wanted to be singing something from Rent.” Or that he mistook a zit for a mole and drew you with giant Marilyn Monroe dot on your face. Your guy will be so overcome with what you’ve shared, he’ll probably want to propose immediately!
If you really want to invite him into your most inner sanctum, let him see the caricature of Steve Buscemi that your mom bought because she didn’t want to have hers drawn and it seemed “fun”.
Showing your man the embarrassing caricature that’s hanging in your parents’ house will deepen your relationship and allow him to open up to you.
Who knows? Maybe soon he’ll show you the air brushed name art that’s still hanging above his bed at his dad’s house. Now that’s love!
