Welcome to the Mary's Cup of Tea podcast. I'm your host, Mary Jolkowski. I'm an author, speaker,

an all-around self-love advocate. And this is the podcast that will inspire you to love yourself.

Four years ago, I was pretty actively dating. Of course, this was before I met boyfriend. And fortunately

for me, because he came into my life relatively quickly, I had like, I don't know, maybe a nine-month

period when I was dating. But before that, I was in a pretty

serious relationship that ended really badly. And then before that, I was just dating all the

wrong people, really toxic relationships, and abusive. And I was just treating myself so poorly at that point in my life that

I literally attracted people who treated me like shit because I felt like I deserved that.

And I didn't think that I was capable or worthy of anything better.

So today, I wanted to talk to you about dating confidence.

And this is going to be a really short episode because I want this number one tip to really

stick with you. So there's one big thing that I'm going to share in this episode. But first, I'm going to tell you a story about how I came to this realization and why it became my dating motto.

So like I said, four years ago, I was actively dating.

And I was talking to a friend about a guy I liked, and I recently went out with him, and I was telling her something along the lines of like, I hope he likes me or I don't know if he likes me.

And I don't know if he feels the same way about me as I do about him.

And she's like, Mary, stop, cut it out,

right the fuck now. I'm done listening to this. And I'm paraphrasing, obviously, but I just remember

her tone of voice being so direct and she successfully talks some sense

into me and she said something along the lines of this to me. She goes, instead of worrying about

whether or not they like you, you need to start thinking about whether or not you like them.

Let that sink in.

Instead of thinking about whether or not they like you and overthinking that shit, start really

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