Ready for my closeup
A few more thoughts on that photo shoot. For one thing, my dislike of being photographed does not make Miss Conduct a unique snowflake, according to my photographer. Apparently lots of people feel that way, and it's also fairly common for people to like videos of themselves better than still photographs.
I found that interesting, and am wondering why that is. So let's open it up a little and talk about how we feel about our faces.
I'm not a huge fan of mine.
This isn't low self-esteem, or body dysmorphia, or a reaction to unrealistic beauty standards promoted in the media. I've always loved the line from Emily's mother in "Our Town"--"You're pretty enough for all normal purposes." That's more or less how I feel. No, I don't look like Angelina Jolie, and it's not my job to look like Angelina Jolie. Would people even listen to advice from someone who looked like Angelina Jolie, or would they just figure that someone that beautiful has probably never even had to deal with the kinds of problems ordinary folks confront? I don't know, and I'll never find out.
So it isn't that I want more pretty than God saw fit to give me. What I don't like about my face is that it doesn't match my mental image of myself. If I were casting an actress to play me, I wouldn't cast me. (Or Lili Taylor.) I have blunt, soft features, and I just feel ... pointier than that. I've written before about how our bodies are represented in our brains, and that for different people, different parts of the body feel more like them than other parts. This is a similar thing. What do you look like in your mind's eye?
In my mind, I look more like Maggie Siff (Rachel Mencken on "Mad Men"):
Who, amusingly, looks not unlike the Grande Dame of advice columnists, Eppie Lederer (aka Ann Landers):
I have kind of a pointy personality, and I want a pointy face to go with it.
Of course, no one agrees with me about this, because my face and personality mesh perfectly to everyone who knows me. And I feel the same way about everyone I know, too: there's a certain inevitable quality to how they look. They just wouldn't be them if they looked different. Not to me, anyway. But I wonder if any of my friends also share that not-matched-up feeling.
What about you? What do you look like in your mind's eye? Does it match up with the reality? Do you like being photographed, or hate it? Do you like yourself better in video? Why do you think that is?
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Welcome to Miss Conduct’s blog, a place where the popular Boston Globe Magazine columnist Robin Abrahams and her readers share etiquette tips, unravel social conundrums, and gossip about social behavior in pop culture and the news. Have a question of your own? Ask Robin using this form or by emailing her at missconduct@globe.com.
Who is Miss Conduct?
Robin Abrahamswrites the weekly "Miss Conduct" column for The Boston Globe Magazine and is the author of Miss Conduct's Mind over Manners. Robin has a PhD in psychology from Boston University and also works as a research associate at Harvard Business School. Her column is informed by her experience as a theater publicist, organizational-change communications manager, editor, stand-up comedian, and professor of psychology and English. She lives in Cambridge with her husband Marc Abrahams, the founder of the Ig Nobel Prizes, and their socially challenged but charismatic dog, Milo.
