How To Know When A Woman Is Actually Independent
There have been quite a few articles published on Thought Catalog lately about the topic of independent women. These posts mostly talk about things like why men should date an independent woman, why women should refuse to apologize for becoming independent, etc. In most of these articles, the author will often refer to certain traits that an independent woman is likely to posses, such as confidence, the ability to do things for herself, not needing to rush into a relationship, etc. Those are all nice and true, but there are other traits that they seem to be forgetting to mention.
An independent woman pays for own her expenses without the regular help of family, friends, or significant others. Sure, she might accept the occasional gift or borrow money when things get tight, but generally she pays for her share of the rent, mortgage, utilities, car, phone, and other household and daily living expenses.
She doesn’t accuse men of being intimidated by her success. Some men may or may not have a problem with her being successful out of intimidation, but she won’t even pay much attention or really care for that matter, because she knows it’s not her problem.
She doesn’t mind paying for her own meal when out on a date, and is willing to occasionally pay for her date as well. If she makes enough money, she will take pride in paying for herself instead of assuming her guy will pay. She might even treat her guy to a meal on her dime just because she can and because she likes to surprise him to something nice one in a while.
An independent woman doesn’t care about how much money her future husband makes. As long as he’s doing what he wants to do and is making enough of his own money to pay for his portion of the expenses, she will be happy for him and happy with him by her side.
She knows that sometimes, people need to depend on others, because they are human too. Being independent doesn’t mean that you’ll never need anyone for anything. Anyone telling you that is delusional. Even mountain men are dependent on things and people from time to time.
She takes responsibility for her actions. Whenever an independent woman makes a mistake or bad decision, she will own up to it and use it as a learning experience. She’s not big on making up excuses to blame someone else or get caught up in being a victim.
She doesn’t feel the need to declare that she is an independent woman. Her actions will make it obvious to people that she’s doing well enough on her own. She won’t need to dedicate her time to convincing everyone.
She’ll be a catch, and won’t need to keep chasing men. This woman won’t ask where all the good guys are, because she knows where they are. She also won’t need to wonder why none of them are paying attention to her, because they will be.
Last, but not least, an independent woman knows that all of these things don’t make her special or deserving of any kind of an award, and all it means is that she’s a responsible, grown human being who values herself as well as the people around her. 
