UNFLATTERING APPEARANCE

No perfect teeth. No perfect brows. No perfect hair. No perfect Brazilian complexion. No perfect body. I walked through the hallways and no one noticed. No appreciation was ever made for the lack of artifice. At the same time, I hated being put on a pedestal.

I learned about beauty standards at a very young age. I learned about how our society has contributed to the internalization of “perfection”. I wanted to fit-in because albeit my lack of aesthetic sense, I was noticed for the absence of effort I put in my everyday accouterment.

I was contaminated by the fabricated beauty epidemic by the time I hit 17 years old. I could not resist the inexistent attraction felt towards me. I wanted to attract and be attracted. I started feeling wanted. With that, I gained some confidence and social media played an enormous part in the evolution of my soon-to-be “narcissism”.

I became dependent to selfies. I started loving to look at myself in every angle. Maybe this was a form of insecurity which people often categorized, a priori, as a narcissistic behavior.

Deep down, I hated my features. I hated how I looked. I choose to repress those nasty feelings because finding refuge in countless filters seemed to be a better option. I lingered over my obsession for perfection until I hit my 20s.

“Chassez le naturel, il revient au galop” (translated from French: “what’s bred in the bone will come out in the flesh”). I got tired of wanting to please eyes of men, who believed they were in competition for a prey. I reverted back to my old habits. My decreasing amount of efforts were often mistaken for neglect instead of natural. I never got compliments for my dark circles or messy brows but instead, got unasked advice on how to treat them. Albeit men showed repugnance towards my garbage face and skinny body, I decided to love my imperfections because inspirational quotes on Instagram were begging me to do so.

The sudden forced positivity present all over the internet, made me want to puke. Because, instead of making us acknowledge our raw insecurities, Instagrammers and YouTubers were talking about embracing our flaws and other body positivity ish. I mean, they did nothing wrong, but I feel that starting to love who we are, is a constructive process. You cannot wake up today and start loving your fat thighs when the day before, you were crying over them.

It’s a contradictory world we live in. At times, people portray surgery to be “in”. Other times, they want us to use that magical face product to embrace our natural side. I felt lost and desperate because I did not conform to any popular beauty standard. But, the complexity of it all, kind of hit me. I realized that we all had something in common: we craved the feeling of being wanted and accepted by the society…the feeling of wanting to conform to the society’s muddled, and at the same time, “square” rules.

At the end of the day, rules are subject to evolution and change. Flat booties were once considered beautiful. Maybe tomorrow your cute fatty belly will be trending. The thing is, shaping your mind into loving your body, regardless of its size, is important. You want to get that nose surgery to feel less insecure, go get it. But, ask yourself a million times why you want to do it. If it’s to please others’ eyes, then it’s a waste of time, money, energy, and health. Receiving approvals from people is all cute and fun at first. But, once they start disapproving your choices, you’ll get hurt. So, no matter what, change for you, and only you, because in any way, our uniqueness is going to create unfounded judgments.

 

Art piece: Modigliani

A little background story. When I was 13 years old, our art teacher asked us to draw a self-portrait inspired by Amedeo Modigliani’s style. At the time, I was extremely uncomfortable with his art. I thought that the elongation of necks and faces were completely odd and I kind of made my self-portrait more realistic than I was asked to do. I do not remember getting a good grade for the piece of art I made, but here I am now, admiring and enjoying the raw and freakish art pieces of this man.

 

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