So, it hit the news a few weeks–maybe a month–ago that dudes taking tons of “selfies” are potentially narcissistic whack-jobs; and this news, though fairly old–seriously, go google it–has been repeated a thousand times over. Thing is, it does make a bit of sense, doesn’t it? Couldn’t you see Christian Bale’s character in American Psycho just snapping pic after pic of himself and posting them to Facebook?
…all this attention to the male selfie news has made me question why I take so many on occasion–am I narcissistic? Well, maybe a little… but that’s not why I think I take so many pictures of myself. The fact of the matter is, I’m fat and worthless. At least, I used to be. I saw myself that way, anyway. Maybe I still do, at times. Yeah, sometimes, I still do–and the selfies are taken with disbelief; do I really look this way? Am I really in better health? Am I really attractive?
Other psychological aspects to the taking of these images relate to some of what I am going through in discovering myself as being single. Am I attractive enough? Is there something inherently wrong with me that I cannot see? Am I a good person? Why am I alone?
What’s bad, is that the self-doubt has been around a fairly long time–some of it stemming from my youth, and quite a bit from my failed marriage.
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