The Selfie Complex

Fair warning:  Hideously tortured thoughts ahead. Weight Loss Journey and Journey of Self Acceptance.  This has naught to do with roleplaying or any of my other pursuits, but that's part of what I told myself I'd do (and warned you!) when I resurrected this blog.

Selfies.  The pinnacle of modern vainglorious social media bullshit.  And I love them.  I love taking them.  I love posting them.  Except I don't.

Backing up.  When I go out to see people socially I usually spend a lot of time on putting myself together. All for people I know and who, in theory, don't give a good god damn about what I look like, made up or no.  And yet I must Put It On.  I must wear this mask of what I feel to be Perfect, Acceptable, Beautiful Not Ugly.  I might put on a face for a character if we're going to be roleplaying.  I tend to go buck wild if we'll be at a gathering where there will be people who I feel the need to ward against - even though they're supposed to be friends - but that's another exploration altogether.  Clothes and makeup, I'll contour and shapewear myself to death to make sure that my face and body silhouette are as much to my liking as possible.  I haven't gotten good yet at making my hair do things, but that's a problem for a future Childe.

BUT SELFIES.  So there's a lot of effort and, dare I say, craft that goes into the outward presentation I frequently put on.  A ton of artifice, smoke and mirrors, but that makes me feel armoured against the world.  Something I can hide behind.

I want to document it, in part because I'm proud of what I've done, and in part to show myself (and the world?) that I'm not the hideous bloated monster I perceive myself to be in my mind.  Selfies are also the one mode of photography where I am in control and where I don't look mushed and awful like when other people take the picture.  So I revel in them.  And where else to pop those images for posterity but over on social media?  And in that instant, those moments where I write my blurb, upload those images, and hit "POST", I'm feeling it.  And then the regret sets in.

I get plenty of positive comments, likes, other reactions.  I've never had anyone tell me that it is TOO MUCH, that I ought to STOP NOW.  But almost immediately I start to doubt whether they're genuine.  I know so many people who are... what's the word... They're just the sort who, to me, seem to be entirely too squishy, supportive of anyone for anything to the point of being enabling and not addressing issues when really they ought to be (oh you haven't gotten your kids to school on time in a month?  IT'S OK YOU'RE TRYING SO HARD YOU ARE BEST MOM AND WE LOVE YOU).  There's an infantilisation at play, though again, another exploration, another time.

So I doubt their sincerity, for one.  They're liking and supporting because it is reflexive, not genuine, and that disgusts me.  And I just feel as though I post too damned many pictures of my face. Like, who wants to see that all the time?   I feel as though I'm imposing my bullshit on them, that I literally have nothing else to offer beyond yet another tilted head half smile angled from that side picture of my dumb face.  I also feel like a fraud because, given all the artifice that I put into it, that's not really me, it is a lie, I'm not really as pretty and approaching thinner as I appear to be in those pictures.   I know so many people who seem to be effortlessly beautiful, with or without makeup, and I despise that I don't Have That.

Therein lies my crisis of mind.  I love what I've done to my presentation in the moment.  I want to remember how awesome I felt in that moment.  A part of me wants to share that moment.  But then crippling self doubt and hatred sets in, and I shut down.

I put a self-imposed ban on myself for posting selfies over in Zuccverse.  It has been a month of no selfies, and honestly my anxiety seems to have lessened a bit.  I have oodles of selfies on my phone, and they've stayed there.  But then I joined another social media platform, and what's one of the first things I do?  Fucking selfie post, like I couldn't help myself.  Which is how I got on this whole line of agonised thinking.

I don't know where I'm going with this; mostly just putting down thoughts so that I can return to this later.  I wish I felt differently.  I wish I could maintain the confidence I have when I initially share these images.  I wish I didn't feel like such a fraud.  And that's a path I need to walk, a destination I need to find.  I just need to learn how.