You see a picture of me gaily dressed. Everything is on fleek, I look so flawless. You pause to like the picture (or love it as the case may be) but before you do, you zoom it a bit and look at the finer details of my picture.
You see that my hair is a Brazilian weave and the finishing is so perfect it could pass for mine but of course it could be my hair because I’ve been known to flaunt my long, full and almost-black hair but then you take a quick look at my shoes and then decide in that instant that it’s a Brazilian weave because my shoes look like I can own a Brazilian weave.
That settled, you look at my face. Your perception of beauty transcends the tenets of philosophy that states that there’s no ideal beauty: it’s in the eye of the beholder or better still, it’s from deep within, a function of the character of hearts and souls. Your perception of a beautiful face is determined by how much of make-up I can get away with and still appear to look natural. You squint your eyes as you assess my sisters-not-twins brows and you decide that I don’t pass the test. I look too natural to be beautiful. You’ll prefer something more unreal, the kind that you’ll like to frame and grace your wall with but then you remind yourself that it’s not you, it’s me. You can and will definitely do better, you tell yourself.
Then you take a quick glance at my clothes in a quick eye movement. Your eyes move up and down and in that moment your expert sense of cost places me in a price category. While I look too well put together, it seems more like it’s my common sense at work, not my fashion sense. I’m not too much of a challenge to get you worked up and bothered about your ends that do not meet. You like my picture (or love it as the case may be) hoping that when you finally get that picture-perfect look you’re working on, I’ll be sure to like it too.
You move on to the next picture but it’s a success story that stares you in the face and you cannot but read it because you hope somewhere somehow in the midst of the writer’s many motivating words you’ll find a place to belong and measure your life achievements by. By the time you read halfway, you realize it’s the story of a life path totally different from yours but you continue, hoping to find some similarity that will console you. You get to the end (the beautiful end that gets everybody wowed) and instead of the euphoric empathetic feeling of joy you’re supposed to have at the narration of a life that is being lived well you become despondent as you remember the many ways your life is not a success by the story’s standard.
Once again, you move on. You must feel good today and so you move on to the next picture or story and begin the process again in a bid to feel better but alas, all you’ll feel afterwards is worse.
Do not be fooled by what you see on social media.
Be you. Do you. Live you.
P.S: There is no picture of me here, me can be anybody.
© Ruth Oluwadunsin Nzere
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