Things I let go

Tomorrow's post may be kind of incoherent, but the conversations that led to it generally started with someone tweeting that she is fat or ugly or both.

One of my vivid memories of summer camp is a slightly older girl complaining about people fishing for compliments. If they wanted a compliment they should just ask for it. I guess it was a pet peeve of hers.

It made a strong impression on me that this is bad behavior, and I have to give some credit for advanced awareness to the older girl. I would not have analyzed the issue that way.

I still can't look down on it. There are so many messages in society that you have to look good, and that necessitates being thin. It is natural to want to be pleasing to those around you, and it's hard to believe that you can if you don't conform to beauty standards, especially if you're a girl.

At the same time, any expression of pleasure in something that you are or do is likely to be stamped down as arrogance, which is also not allowed. In addition, looking for approval or affirmation from anyone else is likely to get you labeled an attention seeker, though people get labeled that for things they do in secret too. It would appear that the end goal is not just poor self-esteem but also neurosis.

There may be some desire to hear someone contradict you when you self-deprecate, but I also can see sincere belief that there are things wrong with you, and aching desire for that not be true, grappling with the training that you are not allowed to see good things about yourself so any affirmation needs to come from outside.

I grew up before social media when it became common to instantly broadcast thoughts, and I still remember doing it at least once. I said to one of my friends, "I am an ugly little toadie", and she did contradict it, so I guess that worked, except the reason I said it is that was the exact phrase that came into my head, stuck there since I had caught an unfortunate glimpse of myself in the mirror. Also, despite her saying I wasn't, I still believed that I was. I thought she was just being nice, because you have to say that.

That's where we're going tomorrow.

Anyway, if people do not always appropriately mask their pain in a mature and dignified fashion, I'm not going to pile on that. I will give a compliment, but it will only be something I can accurately say, and if we need to look at actual flaws and things to change, I will do that too.