It was supposed to be a fun day by the pool. I wore a bikini I\u2019d worn plenty of times before \u2014 nothing outrageous, just something that made me feel confident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But almost immediately, I noticed the awkward glances. One of my friends pulled me aside and whispered, \u201cHey, could you put on something less\u2026 revealing? It\u2019s making our husbands uncomfortable.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I laughed it off, thinking she was joking. \u201cWe\u2019re all adults,\u201d I said, and went back to the water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The day went on \u2014 music, drinks, laughter \u2014 and I honestly thought everything was fine. That was until I overheard one of the husbands talking to the others near the grill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He said, \u201cIf my wife had half her confidence, maybe I\u2019d look at her like that too.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The silence that followed was heavy. Every woman froze. My friends turned to their husbands in shock, and the mood shifted instantly. I didn\u2019t know whether to be angry, embarrassed, or just sad for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Later that night, one of the same friends who\u2019d asked me to cover up messaged me privately. She apologized and admitted the truth: \u201cIt wasn\u2019t about you making them uncomfortable. It was about us realizing how uncomfortable we are with ourselves.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n It hit me hard. We, as women, are often told to shrink, to hide, to dull our shine just so others won\u2019t feel small. But confidence isn\u2019t arrogance \u2014 it\u2019s self-respect. And I won\u2019t apologize for it ever again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It was supposed to be a fun day by the pool. I wore a bikini I\u2019d worn plenty of times before \u2014 nothing outrageous, just something that… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3087,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}