All my pretty friends ain't got no confidence.

My friend, Adam Taylor, posted recently on Facebook, "I know too many girls whose hobbies include 'taking pictures of themselves.'" 

He and I have talked about this before.  He has a strong dislike for this thing a lot of women (and some men) do, when they take pictures of themselves--usually trying to be sexy or pretty or whatever--and share them online.  He went on to say that he probably understood the reasons that compel women to do this, but "when I see someone who has 1500+ pictures of themselves...I start to wonder if they're a celebrity or just a narcissist."

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Yours truly has done it a few times, certainly.  I didn't do it before I lost this weight, but it's happened more often in the last few months.  I also upgraded to an iPhone 4, which means I can use the front camera and see myself on the screen before I take the picture.  I couldn't even begin to add up the number of snapshots that have been deleted before anyone else ever saw them.  (I find the iPhone makes my nose look big.)

Sometimes it's a moment of, "Oh, hey!  I look good!  So-and-so would like to see this!" and it's easier to take the picture and post in online, rather than have to email it to them.  Sometimes it's a matter of, "Man!  I wish What's-their-face could see me like this!"  Sometimes it's just, "Oh!  I'm almost drunk!  I should totally get a picture of this!"

Rarely is it a case of vanity.  More often than not, there's a self-esteem issue that's being addressed when women do this.  We're looking for some kind of external assurance that we're attractive or confident or sexy or whatever.  So we take a picture and hope the right people will see it, the ones who we feel are best equipped to make us feel better about ourselves in that moment.

It's similar to how I can't see my reflection--in a mirror, window, whatever--and not watch it.  If I'm ever facing my reflection while I'm talking, I will usually keep eye contact with the other me, even while I'm carrying on a full conversation with someone else.  There's something magnetic about the reflection of the face, of the eyes, of the minute movements, and it fascinates me endlessly.  I read once that people who look at their own reflections are trying to prove that they exist, psychologically.  That seems a bit simplistic, but it's kind of true. 

20th-century psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan developed the ideal of the "mirror stage" as part of his reinterpretation of Freud's theories.  Infants develop the Sense of Self between the ages of six and eighteen months.  They see an external image of the body, whether in a mirror or through a primary caregiver, that gives rise to the notion of an "ideal ego".  The perfect imagining is a stable, coherent version of the self that isn't changed or influenced by the chaotic drives of the physical world. 

The child constantly strives throughout its life to achieve that Ideal I, which has been established through an attachment with an external image.  It's narcissistic, really, which Lacan says is actually part of the process that the human psyche goes through to reach its full maturity.  The individual progresses toward language and culture, an understanding of the symbolic order, by establishing his own subjectivity through this fantasy image.  All of this is complicated and intertwined with the idea of the imaginary order, where the individual creates fantasy images of both himself and his ideal object of desire.  Lacan argues that the imaginary order is a natural, manifesting update to the mirror stage, after the individual has come to understand symbolic thought and language, and that this striving for the ideal continues throughout the human life span. 

Lacan goes on to make it a little more complicated, with the idea of the Gaze.  The Gaze is the sense that what we're looking at, the object of our glance, is actually looking back at us of its own free will.  He asserts that the seeming will of the object with the Gaze is really an empty reflection of our own narcissism, that our desire for the object is the manifestation of our own lack of being in the Real--the base state of new humans, wherein they are closest to nature, which we move away from as we move into language, i.e. the symbolic order.    

So basically, in a Stephanie-interpreted nutshell, I look at myself in the mirror because I'm always trying to see the Ideal I that I saw as a very young child.  And I feel like she's looking back at me, with her own reflected soul, because I'm too far evolved from my preternatural self to ever be truly content and achieve the fantasy.

As convoluted as that all sounds, I totally get it.  The reflection, or the girl in the shared photograph, is potentially a perfected expression of a moment.  She's pretty or sexy or alluring, and she isn't bothered by the size of her nose or her ass or by what other people think or say or do.  She's not malicious or snarky or scared, and she's happy to be that way. 

So, Adam Taylor, there's definitely a sense of narcissism to this whole taking-pictures-of-ourselves thing that happens.  But sometimes it's more a matter of psychic-preservation than of pure vanity.  And the girls who post the most pictures of themselves are the ones who need the external reinforcement the most.  At some point, they looked into the mirror and felt they were nowhere close to their Ideal I, not on the inside or the outside, and they're trying desperately for someone, anyone, to tell them they're okay the way they are.

Comments

[Cheryl, Castro Valley, CA]

OK, so I've seen pictures of me between 6-18 months. I was fat. What the hell? That's my Ideal I? My mom said I wouldn't eat very much, so she just fed me a little bit a lot of all the time. I was only 4 lbs when I was born, so I guess she figured I needed to catch up.

I think I'm done looking for Ideal I from the baby mirror. Been there, done that. Now I think I'm looking for Ideal I that I see in my mind's eye. God help me because that bitch is probably too perfect to ever really exist! LOL! Clearly, I need a new Ideal I.

Or maybe I should just take more pictures and let my friends tell me how wonderful I am. ;-)

[StephQJ]

Hahaha! I don't know if I totally buy this idea of perfection being set in infancy, though maybe there's something to it. I made a point to take a great picture of me with Adam this weekend--while we were so pretty--just to make a point.

And pictures or no, you're amazing! You're one of those women who can boost me when I really need it. I'm so incredibly thankful to have that group of you in my life!

[Vincent Davis]

How a person looks should neither be judged nor talked about negatively. It's important to look good because what a person does or how a person looks reflects his personality. But nobody's perfect, you know.