Okay, girls, let’s get real. For all of us who are pretty tattooed, it’s hard to date guys who aren’t (at least for me). Maybe I’m scarred for life because of an incident that happened to me not too long ago. My tattoos give me an outlet to express my creative side, but yet, they do not define me. To be honest, I’ve struggled with self-confidence for a long time, and my tattoos have made it easier to love myself. Weird, I know, but they help. So, when I meet someone, I hope they learn to appreciate my tattoos the way I do. 
Now that you have a little back-story about me and why I love my tattoos so much, let me tell you about one of my worst dating experiences with a guy who didn’t have any tattoos. I had been dating this guy off and on for a few months, but it was nothing more than just a hang out here and there. To my surprise, things were starting to move in a more serious direction, and the topic of meeting each other’s family came up. Not going to lie, I was giddy and excited because this guy was smoking hot, had an awesome job, and had a great relationship with his family… I hit the jackpot and the little girl inside me was already planning our wedding. But of course, my dreams came shattering down in an instant when a single sentence fell out of his mouth…
“When you meet my mom, you need to wear a long sleeve shirt”. Just like that… He said that to me. What?! A long sleeve shirt? Now, I completely understand the stigma behind tattoos and that it’s hard for some people to accept them, especially parents. Dating with tattoos will always be a little difficult because everyone judges a book by its cover these days and parents form an opinion of you before you can even open your mouth to say “hello”. When it comes time to meet parents, I ALWAYS cover my tattoos up. I am relatively shy and I want to leave a good first impression so I will usually wear a long sleeve anyway. But, it’s always my decision and not because a guy tells me to. I was shocked. Most guys I date tell me not to worry about that because they do not want me to hide my true self. So when this particular guy told me to wear a long sleeve, I was mortified. Being a girl, all these things were running through my head. Will my personality not be good enough to make his parents like me? Will they think I’m not as smart as I really am? What will they say when I leave? Needless to say, my insecurities got the best of me.
I couldn’t talk to this guy anymore because I was so taken aback. I learned a lot about this guy with that one sentence, and I knew this would never work out. I also told myself that I couldn’t date a guy who didn’t have tattoos so that this conversation would never come up again. But then, I realized that I was being just like that guy, judging before I knew the person. My future guy and his family will love me no matter the amount of ink on my skin or his. Girls, don’t let any guy tell you to cover up your tattoos! Do what makes you feel most comfortable and if it gives you more confidence like they do for me, show them off!
