Admit it. Every time you walk past a reflective surface, you take a quick glance at yourself. Maybe not even a quick glance. Sometimes you may even stop to fix a stray hair, fix your tie, or even just stop and admire your goddamn beautiful self.
I do it.
Not excessively. Not that it's anything to be ashamed of; it's a completely natural human inclination. Funny that I just read a lecture to my students from the TOEFL book about animal self-awareness. Apparently, chimpanzees increase self-grooming and touching when shown a reflection of themselves. These TOEFL books are just chock FULL of knowledge; those kids just don't appreciate the academic goldmine that lies in front of them.
The other day, I may have crossed the line. It's one thing to fix a stray hair or a lopsided faux-hawk. But as I stood in front of the mirror in the locker room of California WOW, I made a clear leap-frog over self-awareness into the realms of utter vanity. As I changed into my clothes after a shower, I stood in front of the mirror and almost by sheer accident, by some uncontrollable twitch of the body, my left hip jutted to the side and...I struck a pose. A quick pose. But a pose nonetheless. I could have done Tyra proud.
Just to make sure that this hadn't been one of those bodily twitches that occurs because of fatigue, I slowly repeated the motion and confirmed that I had, indeed, struck a pose. Madonna told us to strike a pose because "there's nothing to it," but there is something to it. As ashamed as I am of having given the mirror at my gym a split-second show, I like to think that I'm just a victim of this image-obsessed society. You may think this is all just mumbo jumbo, academic broo-haha. Quite the contrary, I am surrounded on a daily basis by the pressure to look "good." My students, for example, never fail to point out something about the way I look.
"Why are you always trying to copy David Beckham?"
What are you talking about?? Beckham totally stole the faux-hawk from me!
"Why do you cuff your pants up like that so much?"
So I can give you idiots a nice view of my hairy ankles.
"Whoa, I can't believe you're wearing white shoes!"
Why don't you shut up and work on your essay before this white shoe ends up in your face.
That's my defense, and I'm sticking to it. I'm a victim of a society where clothes truly make the man/woman. And this ridiculous pose that I can't get out of my mind--which I hope was really just a private encounter between myself and the mirror--must be some sort of sign that the critical Korean eye has crept into my subconscious. Crept in and started breeding a nasty strain of severe self-consciousness and the bodily/sartorial obsession.
I may return to the United States and comment on how your legs look fat in that skirt or how you might look better with a different haircut.
Just remember, it's not my fault.
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4 comments:
oh paul. this post is SCARY....i'm scared to wear anything in front of you now. i'm going to be so self conscious now!!!
i can't help but turn my head on my way to the subway as i pass by the somewhat reflective glass doors of Pace University (next door to my apartment). sometimes i restrain myself so that people walking by don't look down on me.
i have a friend who used to plan her route to class based on which buildings had mirrors so she could sneak a glance en route. admittedly, this was more about neurosis than it was about vanity, but they're kind of one and the same, no?
besides, there are times when we ALL could use a little visual check-up. yesterday morning i walked to work and it was really hot so i just piled my hair in a bun to get it out of the way. i didn't know why the other intern was looking at me funny when i walked in, but the routine morning trip to the bathroom (a little dab-dab to deal with perspiration from the hot summer days, etc.) quickly revealed that i looked, basically, CRAZY, with my hair in a huge lopsided pile sticking straight up out of my head and my makeup drippy. ewww.
well, it WAS just a quick moment between you and the mirror, but now you've told everyone you know about it. so which is the act of bigger vanity?
I went to a lecture once about body image and Barbie or something, and the prof. mentioned that same phenomenon of the glass-building-as-impromptu-mirror, and said, what's even funnier is when you're on the other side of the glass. He said he used to work in a bank, and there was a constant flow of people looking straight through him. hehehe.
I agree with Priyanka: better to look put-together than not. Remember: the world used to have better standards of what was acceptable to go out in! and when you come back to America and see....what people think is okay now...well....nothing wrong with a tiny bit of judgement, eh?
paul for mi cumpleanos, i would like a big fat post. this is long overdue for the blog whore in me. i NEED blogs!
...and ice cream.
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