Countless times, some very precious people have tried to change the way I look at myself. A memory stands out as I think back on my makeover sessions: in freshman year, in order to make me feel like an empowered woman, my friends decided to put make-up on my face and dress me up in sexier clothes. Now, a lot of you would probably consider that to be ridiculously condescending. These girls, after all, were working on "making me look prettier" and "breaking some boy's heart". I, however, felt the sincerity in their actions. They were doing that because they believed in my beauty. Aena, the girl who initiated the makeover, thought I was too much of a "She's All That Lanie", so she wanted me to utilise my looks and make me feel more like a vamp and less like a lamb. Alex, the really quiet but fashionable one in the group, thought I looked like Georgina Sparks from Gossip Girl which I consider as a compliment. How could I feel like these girls were being condescending, when they were actually helping me feel good about myself? I don't hang out with them anymore, having gone separate ways after I shifted from AB-ISJ to AB-LIM, but these girls would always have a special place in my heart for making me feel beautiful when all I saw was an ugly doormat in sheep's (translation: très simple) clothing.
Years later, when I was not the awkward freshman sheep girl anymore (although I still have a lot of awkward sheep tendencies), I met a girl who would eventually become a close friend of mine. We bonded over a lot of girl things, something that I missed out on ever since I left my freshman circle and sort of went solo for quite a while. There was, however, one thing that I couldn't enjoy with her, and it was something as simple as putting on make-up in the bathroom. How was it possible that I could enjoy such a thing with girls who I weren't friends with for a very long time, and yet I couldn't enjoy it when this girl, who I consider to be one of my closest friends, checks out our reflections on the mirror with me?
I know it is a terrible self-victimising habit to blame someone else for your miseries, but for the longest time I hated looking at myself on the mirror because of one certain bathroom moment with her. We were laughing at our "boy stories", sharing tips on how to make your guy blush to his toes, when she whipped her hair, looked at me with a raised eyebrow and said: "Wow, Lorri, you clean up well." I stopped laughing.
Now why, you ask, would such a comment be offensive? Perhaps it was the way she whipped her hair, eyed me from head-to-toe, smirked a bit and folded her arms across her chest. Perhaps it was the way she immediately placed aesthetic superiority over me by giving me a compliment that would put me in the position of her Beta, the loyal puppy dog you keep grooming to make you look even better. Perhaps it was because at the time, I finally understood how she saw me after all this time. I was a mousy, nerdy kid with skin problems and zero confidence, and my crowning moment of "Whoa Hermione's a girl after all" with her implies that she never thought of me as someone beautiful. I don't have a problem with people not thinking I'm beautiful; I understand how people will always have different preferences and most of them just do not prefer me. I, however, took offense at the fact that while some people thought of me as being naturally pretty without even getting to know me past my Lanie days, this girl saw me as someone inferior to her, and she did not waste time assuring her superiority over me when she saw that I was having a "Wow I actually look human" moment.
I was Serena van der Woodsen and she was Blair Waldorf, except she was into social politics much more than Gossip Girl's resident Queen Bee. Unlike the girls from freshman year who made me feel empowered and actually liked, this girl made me feel like crap by giving me a loaded compliment. And for the longest time, I felt nothing but ugly. I began to see myself as how she saw me: that I was only beautiful whenever I was dressed up and had make-up on, and that even if I were to be beautiful I'd still be inferior to her classic, eye-catching beauty. After all, according to "girl world mentality" (see Mean Girls), there really is only one space for a Queen Bee. The rest are her lowly, almost-as-pretty minions.
What I eventually realised is that no one will make me feel better about myself for me, so why should I allow anyone to make me feel worse? First step was to stop taking said girl's comment personally, and to start viewing it as said girl's mere delusions about beauty, aesthetics and hierarchy. I have succumbed to her petty way of viewing the world, and it was time to get that nonsense out of my head. The second thing was to start believing in my own beauty. This is taking a while and often times I still feel like I'm not beautiful at all, but I'm learning to love my body more and if there are things I do not like about them I know now that I can always do something about those things. The third thing I realised from this is that I need to watch how I view people and how I give them compliments. Do I genuinely find people beautiful, or do I delude myself into thinking everyone else is uglier (or at least less pretty) so that I could feel good about being the prettiest in my eyes, at least? Do I make patronising comments about other people, and am I sensitive towards those with low self-esteem?
Quite frankly, I still have the urge to be petty most of the time. I still have the urge to compare myself to other people, but reflecting upon what has been hurting my self-esteem has made me realise how I'm ultimately the one hurting myself. I let myself get affected by said girl's comment, and that just goes to show how I saw myself in the first place. But I know better now, and maybe in time I can help other girls feel good about themselves too without sounding like a condescending bitch with a superiority complex. It's time to put the mirror back up on the wall, because kind self-love is the fairest confidence booster of them all.
 |
| Michelle Trachtenberg. I'm not sure anymore if there is a resemblance or I deluded myself into that right after they told me of the resemblance. I rarely get compared to celebrities, so it stays in my mind. |
Years later, when I was not the awkward freshman sheep girl anymore (although I still have a lot of awkward sheep tendencies), I met a girl who would eventually become a close friend of mine. We bonded over a lot of girl things, something that I missed out on ever since I left my freshman circle and sort of went solo for quite a while. There was, however, one thing that I couldn't enjoy with her, and it was something as simple as putting on make-up in the bathroom. How was it possible that I could enjoy such a thing with girls who I weren't friends with for a very long time, and yet I couldn't enjoy it when this girl, who I consider to be one of my closest friends, checks out our reflections on the mirror with me?
I know it is a terrible self-victimising habit to blame someone else for your miseries, but for the longest time I hated looking at myself on the mirror because of one certain bathroom moment with her. We were laughing at our "boy stories", sharing tips on how to make your guy blush to his toes, when she whipped her hair, looked at me with a raised eyebrow and said: "Wow, Lorri, you clean up well." I stopped laughing.
Now why, you ask, would such a comment be offensive? Perhaps it was the way she whipped her hair, eyed me from head-to-toe, smirked a bit and folded her arms across her chest. Perhaps it was the way she immediately placed aesthetic superiority over me by giving me a compliment that would put me in the position of her Beta, the loyal puppy dog you keep grooming to make you look even better. Perhaps it was because at the time, I finally understood how she saw me after all this time. I was a mousy, nerdy kid with skin problems and zero confidence, and my crowning moment of "Whoa Hermione's a girl after all" with her implies that she never thought of me as someone beautiful. I don't have a problem with people not thinking I'm beautiful; I understand how people will always have different preferences and most of them just do not prefer me. I, however, took offense at the fact that while some people thought of me as being naturally pretty without even getting to know me past my Lanie days, this girl saw me as someone inferior to her, and she did not waste time assuring her superiority over me when she saw that I was having a "Wow I actually look human" moment.
I was Serena van der Woodsen and she was Blair Waldorf, except she was into social politics much more than Gossip Girl's resident Queen Bee. Unlike the girls from freshman year who made me feel empowered and actually liked, this girl made me feel like crap by giving me a loaded compliment. And for the longest time, I felt nothing but ugly. I began to see myself as how she saw me: that I was only beautiful whenever I was dressed up and had make-up on, and that even if I were to be beautiful I'd still be inferior to her classic, eye-catching beauty. After all, according to "girl world mentality" (see Mean Girls), there really is only one space for a Queen Bee. The rest are her lowly, almost-as-pretty minions.
What I eventually realised is that no one will make me feel better about myself for me, so why should I allow anyone to make me feel worse? First step was to stop taking said girl's comment personally, and to start viewing it as said girl's mere delusions about beauty, aesthetics and hierarchy. I have succumbed to her petty way of viewing the world, and it was time to get that nonsense out of my head. The second thing was to start believing in my own beauty. This is taking a while and often times I still feel like I'm not beautiful at all, but I'm learning to love my body more and if there are things I do not like about them I know now that I can always do something about those things. The third thing I realised from this is that I need to watch how I view people and how I give them compliments. Do I genuinely find people beautiful, or do I delude myself into thinking everyone else is uglier (or at least less pretty) so that I could feel good about being the prettiest in my eyes, at least? Do I make patronising comments about other people, and am I sensitive towards those with low self-esteem?
Quite frankly, I still have the urge to be petty most of the time. I still have the urge to compare myself to other people, but reflecting upon what has been hurting my self-esteem has made me realise how I'm ultimately the one hurting myself. I let myself get affected by said girl's comment, and that just goes to show how I saw myself in the first place. But I know better now, and maybe in time I can help other girls feel good about themselves too without sounding like a condescending bitch with a superiority complex. It's time to put the mirror back up on the wall, because kind self-love is the fairest confidence booster of them all.
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| Time to own it. I'm a beautiful woman and I'm hella proud of it. |
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