Why does it still make me cringe when people who I've met online see what I look like for the first time?
Today in Berkeley, it got up to 90-something degrees, I think. As a result, as I type this with my laptop blazing away on my lap, I'm all shiny and glistening from sweat, so I thought it might be a good time to revisit this question I raised (but didn't reflect on) in an earlier post, about why it still makes me cringe when people who I've met online see what I look like for the first time.
The honest answer is that probably, when I'm being totally honest with myself, I think I'm ugly.
And I guess I think that people actually seeing me after meeting me online will somehow blow my cover of being funny, clever, witty, thoughtful, caring, or whatever else they have come to believe about me. Somehow seeing that I'm a tall, dorky, bags-under-her-eyes, tall, bad-skin, pale, wears-no-makeup, tomboy will make them think things about me that they haven't thought before -- that I'm weird, that there's something wrong with me, that it makes sense I'm single, etcetera, etcetera -- that somehow my appearance and the impression that creates will overpower the things they thought about me before.
Throughout my life, I have gotten stared at a lot in public. Sometimes it is because I'm with my identical twin, so people do double takes when they see us together. But sometimes people just stare at me. I asked my dad once what was up with that, and he told me it was because I am "unusual looking." Unusual-looking. Hmmm.
When I say I'm ugly, or not attractive or not pretty, it's not said to elicit protests from the people I'm talking to. Just because I'm not classically beautiful doesn't mean that people won't find me attractive. I think it's entirely possible that once someone gets to know me, they will think that I'm the hottest thing ever, because of my looks combined with my sarcastic wit and keen intellect and other endearing qualities. It's just interesting to me that even nearing 40, I am so afraid of what power people will give to the way I look. And I'm aware that I fear that precisely because of the power that I give to it myself.
Monday, April 20, 2009
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I think your last line needs an addendum, which is not only the power that you give to it yourself but the power you give them -- the very people you think are thinking these things. We tend to project our negative view of ourselves, either externally or internally, upon others all the time.
ReplyDeleteSure, not *everyone's* going to think we're attractive or fancy us in that way no matter how "hot" we may typically be regarded as. Meaning, we all know the hot person that we're shocked to find out how one of our friends or whoever thinks is either not so hot or even downright ugly.
I think at some point we just have to say, "Hey, this is me, this is the wrapping I came in." Period. End of story. Now what we do with that wrapping is entirely our own dealio and responsibility. We can do our best to keep it clean and unwrinkled or unripped or we can just let it sit to be ravaged by time and neglect -- ultimately, condemning it to the judgement of our own negative voice, one devoid of any love or compassion whatsoever.
It's not like any of us who may feel as you do, in whole or in part, about ourselves can just read (or re-read) these words and just "snap out of it." But if we recognize the truth then we can make it actionable in ourselves, should we choose to. Or not. But at the end of the day, how we heal and take care of ourselves is our responsibility and, for some, perhaps, more of a "burden" than for someone else.
But what's the alternative? What else can one do except work with what we have?