I have been thinking about something for a while now, and I just haven’t been able to process it, and make it into something palatable.
We live in a world where what people think about us is actually more important than if people know us and like us as we truly are. I have read about the links between social media and depression, but while there is no question anyone who “exists” in social media should do so with the full understanding that what we see about other people is only part of the real story, this idea of projecting a certain image of ourselves is not really new.
My five-year-old just finished preschool, and we’re staring down the barrel of kindergarten. Nothing is easy. Just last week, we went to kindergarten roundup, and my daughter has zero filter. It happens to be that a handful of her preschool classmates will be joining her at her new school. It also happens to be that one of the little girls in her class doesn’t particularly want to be her friend, and my daughter was eager to share this information with everyone she met. Each time, I felt the fire in my cheeks as she revealed this information so matter-of-factly. At at least two points, I took quiet opportunities to explain that we shouldn’t talk about the situation.
“Why,” she asked me. And the truth is, I really don’t know. So, I told her that even if it’s true, people don’t like to hear that. Again, she asked why. I still didn’t have an answer that made any real sense, so I just told her the truth. Grown ups are dumb.
Sure, it isn’t relevant to everyone that another child doesn’t want to be friends with her, but is the truth really such a terrible thing? Is an unpleasant or uncomfortable situation really the death knell of one’s social existence? Is saying what we really feel, think and believe chasing people from our lives whom we should be fighting to keep?
At one point, the importance of projecting a certain facade or image to exist within specific dynamics probably seemed like a good idea to someone. Everyone knows you don’t talk about politics, religion or money—although I would argue plenty of people don’t care so much about that last one. Everyone knows that you should only talk about certain things in whispers so things don’t get around. Everyone knows that openly asking for help is a sign of weakness. Everyone knows that it’s more comfortable for everyone else if nobody knows you have any problems or challenges.
And all in the name of maintaining social connections on which our lives depend, we isolate our true selves in fear that the friends we’ve collected through our public identity will see the truth and shun us.
So, we share our happy moments, our beautiful photos, our vacations, our accomplishments, and our triumphs. We carefully manicure these moments, and curate an existence that allows others to both feel comfortable about who we are, and possibly a little envious.
We watch for “likes,” “loves,” and “lols.” We’re sad when we don’t get the responses we were hoping for, even though a smiley face on a screen is about as real a commentary on who we are as the pretense that we didn’t take the photo we posted twenty times, crop out the stranger’s elbow that accidentally got in, and then enhance it with a filter.
Some of us crave that interaction so much, that we are devastated when we don’t get it. And then there are the people who see all of these amazing and dazzling moments everyone else is experiencing, and they question the value of who they are, or even their own lives. Now, realize, I am not saying our vacation photos drive other people to self harm, but for someone whose self image and self criticism are as unrealistic as the rest of us only posting the bright side of life, we probably aren’t a great source of comfort.
We swab the lens on our lives to make everything more acceptable, more beautiful, and more beyond the real. And no one is any the wiser.
Or else, we don’t. We don’t sugar coat life. We don’t pretend everything is easy. We don’t pretend to have an inauthentic existence or life. We acknowledge that getting our kid through preschool was challenging. We acknowledge that we lost our job six months ago, and we’re just getting back on track. We acknowledge that we started running again and cut out soda, but stress made us backslide. We acknowledge that we’re real people, living real lives, and even that we don’t always see the world around us with the same eyes. We say ‘uncle’ when we’re struggling and we hope one person we know might understand and be able to lend an ear, a shoulder, or a hand. We share an unflattering photo or moment with our kid, and we later realize we made a mistake—and we say so.
I don’t want a perfect life or a perfect existence. When I scrapbook a trip, I include the blurry photo of the castle in case I never get to see it any other way again. I am okay if people know I struggle, because if they have seen me at my worst, they know how incredibly hard I have worked and fought to dig my way out. And isn’t that just as worthy of a triumphant selfie or cake, as everything going according to plan? I’m okay with telling the story of our first trip to Ireland, and how we got to see almost nothing, because of an agricultural disaster, and illustrating it with photos of some kittens who were playing on the grounds of a hotel at the Giants Causeway as I regained my composure over the disappointment. Things like that make real life stories. They make us who we are, and they challenge us to try again, or even to look back and find the good in a moment that wasn’t so good at the time.
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| The Turoe Stone-County Galway. The worst photo has the best detail. |
I don’t want people to like me because I pretend to live and breathe the same way they do. I don’t want my daughter to tell everyone some kid from her class doesn’t want to be her friend, but I do want her to understand that is going to happen, and that she should never try to be anything she’s not so someone who doesn’t like her will.
Our lives are made up of all of the perfect photos, and the blurry ones. Leaving something out because it doesn’t reflect perfectly to others is only leaving out the possibility that someone else needed that moment—that seeing that moment gave someone a chance to say “Me too, I thought I was alone, but now I know I’m not.” That picture is always going to be worth a thousand words.
