1 post tagged “narcissism”

In the fluorescent glow of the production bathroom mirrors, I carefully examine my hair. The morning bike ride inevitably leaves it disheveled, so immediately after arriving at work, I make a few slight adjustments and proceed to change into my work attire.
But it’s not only my hair. Lately I’ve become overly conscious of my teeth. In the light of the bathroom mirrors, they can fool me into believing they’re white, but I know in the warm yellow sunshine, they are hideous. This is a fact my ex-wife pointed out to me during the intervening months after I discovered her affair and before I filed for divorce. The whitening strips haven’t helped.
I would content that self image is irrevocably link to physical appearance. It’s inescapable, a fact of life with the exception of the few giftedly ugly, those who understand they are ugly by nature, have accepted it, and by the strength of their beautiful minds are able to transcend reality. For the rest of us, the border line handsome, it is a struggle. As I pass the mirrors on my way out, I stop and take stock. I groan in frustration.
It’s understandable that for single men, hair is important. As I rapidly approach thirty, I grieve my growing forehead. I work my hand desperately above it to create an illusion of thick lustrous hair by working what’s on the top of my head forward, but it only last for the transit to my desk, and as I walk down the hall to the main restrooms, I puff out my chest while working my hand in the same motions on my scalp as when my view my reflection hoping my hair falls in the right alignment, that a pretty girl doesn’t pass by, that I reach the mirror soon.
But this narcissism isn’t limited to single people. When married, one’s self image becomes bound to that of their spouse. It is united, and how a person feels about themselves is dependent not only on their own image, but that of the person they share a life with, maybe predominately on the other person, their living reflection. And I think like with most people, my own feelings about myself when married were complicated. At times I felt good, proud, others, ashamed.
And it’s a matter of control. The most power a person ever has over their image is their ability to manage their own, so when your image becomes bond to another, you lose half your control. The mornings when my then wife would roll out of bed late, her belly hanging out of her shirt, I internalized it. The days she would wear ripped jean shorts and lounge lazily on a couch with unshaven legs while company was over, I saw myself as if in a mirror. Not that my ex-wife wasn’t beautiful. She could be very beautiful, but the long stretches of time when she fell into depression, manifested it in her appearance, and then demanded that I accept her as beautiful, I lost control of how I felt about myself, knew it wasn’t in my power to change this shadow of the person. It didn’t matter what I said, but I saw myself in her, my failure to make her feel beautiful.
When we look for mates, we look for people who in some way improve, amplify, the way we feel about ourselves. The best decision isn’t always apparent, and youth has a way of letting people down. Looking back on it, the girl I should have married I let slip by for the stupidest reasons, superficial ones. She was a women when most girls where still adolescent, and when the aesthetic revolves around undeveloped bodies, it’s hard to fully appreciate a fertile figure. Aside from the deviant form of her body from that of the thin pale girls I found attractive at the time, she had qualities, that in hindsight, were priceless.
When a man finally hits his mark, and his seed begins to grow into a living being at the same time transforming the body of the woman he has sown, it clicks inside his head. As I watched my ex-wife’s body transform with the birth of our first child, slowly I began to appreciate the beauty of hips, the healthy plumpness of fat, the fertility. It seems that it takes the average woman’s body roughly a year to recover from giving birth, but when it does, it isn’t the same, it is experienced, proven, and manifest a beauty that wasn’t before realized. Suddenly, the despised standard of beauty that resembles an adolescent boy’s figure isn’t appealing, and woman is fully appreciated for who she is. She is revealed.
My ex-wife brought about this realization in me, and it was then that I regretted dismissing such a beautiful form as the girl I now feel I should have married for something so trite as a social aesthetic. I passed up not only a fertile female body, but a wonderful mind and compassionate individual who seemed confident in her own self image that, in hindsight, would have produce a productive, healthy relationship all for the ignorance of youth.
But no sense in lamenting the past. The present is where it's at. With comments on my ‘pointed’ face and bad teeth, my ex-wife, in belittling me to justify herself, has resulted in my narcissistic obsession with mirrors. A little ex-wife stands behind me while I gaze on my visage in the morning, afternoon, and evening, pointing out all the imperfections.
And it’s not only this voice, but the female form I pursue in my unattached prowl. Actively, I discriminate among potential mates for the young, firm, and a standard of female physical beautiful that I hope will reflect the youth and health of my own form. As I gaze in the mirror, the image reflected back is dependent upon it’s ability to attracted the afore mentioned, so it would seem experience hasn’t taught me anything.
The shape of body is only a part of an image. A personality can transform a homely appearance into beauty. It is meaning giving life to form, and secretly, I lust after the giftedly ugly, for someone, unlike my ex-wife, who is secure enough in themselves, physically, emotionally, mentally, to amplify my own self esteem, but this isn’t a person you can find by looking at them. It is someone you have to experience. A beauty that must be coax out of a undistinguished anatomy to reveal itself.
And this isn’t the sum of fulfillment. Sometimes a force out of anyone’s control can effect your own self image. Whereas I rode my bike to work on Tuesday, I didn’t ride it home. I spent most of the day in agony because of a vein in my leg. Whether it is because of the treatment for my failing kidneys, an over exuberant exercise routine, or just age, I have been confined to inactivity, and this effects how I view myself. I am no longer the youthful healthy guy trying to coax his hair into submission in the bathroom mirror after riding to work, but a sickly aging man who hobbles down the hallways in pain passing the youthful attractive girls with disdain for the pity I imagine they feel for me. This I have little control over. My body simply will not respond, and so I feel old, undesirable.
The mirror reflects an image, but the viewer imposes meaning on what is seen. Today, I see a sick broken individual, not even worthy of the giftedly ugly.
Like the bike ride to work, the daily perspective of the image reflected back is wrought with ruff terrain. What a pitiful metaphor, but I’ve themed this blog so eff it. During the summer as road crews gouge the pavement with monstrous equipment, the thin wheels of my bike lose their air, pummeled by the uneven pavement. It makes pedaling labored, but when I arrive home, I always refill the void and start the next day fresh with inflated tires. Whatever that means.
And maybe what it means is that when this leg is healed, I can stop in front of the mirror after the morning bike ride and the illusion of a young, healthy, handsome man will appear. My ego will once again be inflated. I will be again happily narcissistic, hopelessly superficial.