Thursday 21 September 2017

#258 Thinking about yourself in the third person

It could be a difficult thing sometimes. Viewing oneself from the outside. It was Tuesday afternoon. I'd just had my hair cut by a new barber over in Greenwich and was on my way home. I noticed a row of parked cars a street away and trotted over to peer into a wing mirror. 

Despite feeling like the owner would come by and think I was stealing his ride, I was able to get a good glimpse of the damage. It wasn't good. The guy had turned me into a thug. I thought about it the rest of the walk home. Could I get it altered? It was quite short as it was. What if I turned up to an interview in a hat? I'd still have to take it off. Dammit, why had I tried somewhere new? No wonder there was no queue. I should have just waited it out at the usual place.

Once home, I arranged my phone on top of the stack of towels on my chest of drawers and hit record. Mirrors were fine but there was only so much you could see in 2D. I pranced around the room, pacing, wriggling, nodding. I wanted to see exactly how I looked to other people in the real world. When I played back the video, it revealed a tidier, more flattering result. Thank goodness.

I eventually satisfied myself that the cut wasn't that awful and I could meet people without being branded as bad news. I knew people weren't necessarily that fickle either and that bad news wasn't always easy to spot. I had a friend who always ended up dating the wrong kind of guy. She often thought it might be her fault. That either she was putting something out there, or even that she was turning the men bad herself. I Googled "Reasons why you're attracting guys who are bad for you" and came across a long list of articles.

As far as I could learn, there were a number of possible reasons. A lack of dating criteria. poor quality attention from the male caregiver in childhood. Excessive submissiveness. I hoped she'd do some research too. Left to her own thoughts, she might just sit around blaming herself.

It's often the case that when a person relies only on their own viewpoint, they miss things. People have evolved to focus on a limited field of vision but today we have video cameras and thousands of libraries worth of information that we can carry around in our pocket. 

The time for relying on our own personal experience alone, or even that of our friends, families and local communities is over. Everything we see, think, feel and believe is open to interpretation and we have faster access to a wider range of those interpretations than ever before. Whether we're dating or just checking out a new haircut.

6 comments

Running on empty said...

I think it's too much pressure on younger people today.

Fizzfan said...

Hairs such a mood changer. I wish we just had all over fur.

Profound Familiarity said...

Some of us practically do :)

Profound Familiarity said...

When I find one, I'll ask them about it :)

Running on empty said...

Lollol lollollol!!!

Running on empty said...

Young people like you. There was not much in the way of social media when I was your age.