Two faces of the same Me!

The Face I Cannot Recognize

I have looked at mirrors my whole life. Thousands of them. Bathroom mirrors. Car mirrors. Shop windows. The back of a spoon once, when I was young and desperate.

In the mirror, I am not bad. Not handsome. Not ugly. Just a face. A normal face. The kind you would walk past and not remember.

That is what I see.

Then someone takes a photograph. A friend. A colleague. A stranger at a wedding. They point their phone at me and click. Later, when I see the picture, I do not recognize the person looking back.

The face is ugly. The nose is wrong. The eyes are uneven. The skin looks tired. The whole thing looks like something I would avoid if I saw it on the street.

I do not understand. It is the same face. The one I saw in the mirror this morning. The one I have washed and shaved and slept behind for forty-seven years. But in the photograph, it is not mine. It is someone else's. Someone ugly. Someone I do not want to be.

---

The Selfie Recheck

I take selfies. Many. I adjust the angle. I adjust the light. I adjust my expression. I take ten. I delete nine. I keep the one where I look acceptable. Where I look like the mirror version. The normal one.

That selfie is my proof. See? I am not ugly. I have evidence.

But then someone else takes a picture. A real picture. Not posed. Not curated. Just me, standing there, being myself. And the ugliness returns. The same face. The same features. Arranged differently. Or maybe arranged the same, but seen by different eyes. Eyes that are not mine.

I do not know which one is real. The mirror? The selfie? The photograph taken by another? I have asked myself this question for decades. I am forty-seven years old. I have a diagnosis. I have medication. I have survived things that would have killed softer men. But I cannot answer this simple question.

Do I look good? Do I look bad? Am I average? Am I ugly? I do not know. I have never known.

---

The Complex That Started in Teen Years

It began when I was young. Other boys were called handsome. Other boys got attention. Other boys walked into a room and something shifted. People wanted to be near them. People wanted to please them. People loved them easily. Effortlessly. Without conditions.

I watched them with awe. Not jealousy. Awe. The same awe you feel watching a bird fly or a fish swim. They were doing something I could not do. They were being beautiful in a way that made the world open its doors.

I thought: They are blessed. God looked at them and smiled. God looked at me and shrugged.

That thought never left. It grew. It became the lens through which I saw every interaction. If someone was kind to me, I wondered what they wanted. If someone ignored me, I understood. Of course they ignored me. Look at me. Would you choose me?

I was not loved by all. I was loved by very few. Selectively. Conditionally. The ones who stayed were either blind or desperate or too kind to leave.

That is what I believed. That is what I still believe. Even now. Even after the medication. Even after the therapy. Even after writing fifteen posts that strangers have read. The belief remains.

I am not enough. Not in the face. Not in the body. Not in the way the world sees me.

---

The Strange Respect for the Handsome

I do not hate handsome men. I respect them. I admire them. I think: you have won a lottery you did not buy a ticket for.

They walk through life differently. Doors open. People smile. Promises are kept. The world is gentler to beautiful people. That is not a complaint. That is an observation. I have seen it. I have felt the difference between how I am treated and how they are treated.

A handsome man says something ordinary, people listen. I say something wise, people check their phones.

A handsome man walks into a room, the temperature rises. I walk into a room, the temperature stays the same. Or drops. I cannot tell. I am too busy wondering if my hair is okay.

I do not blame them. They did not choose their faces any more than I chose mine. But I envy them. Deeply. Quietly. In a way I have never admitted out loud.

They are loved by all. I am loved by very few. Selectively. Carefully. By people who have learned to look past my face.

I am grateful for those people. But I am also tired. Tired of being looked past. Tired of being the one who is loved despite. Tired of wondering, every time I meet someone new, whether they will stay or whether my face will send them away.

---

The Mirror, The Selfie, The Photograph

I still do not know.

This morning, I looked in the mirror. I was not bad. Not handsome. Just a face.

Then I took a selfie. Adjusted the angle. The light. Kept one. Deleted nine. The one I kept looked acceptable.

Then a friend took a picture of me at lunch. I saw it later. The same face. The same features. But ugly. Tired. Wrong.

Three versions of the same person. Which one is true? Which one do others see? Which one should I believe?

I am forty-seven years old. I have a diagnosis. I have medication. I have written thousands of words about the hen, the lamb, the bull, the cigarette, the alcohol, the love, the mother. I have faced things that would have broken me. I have kept writing.

But I cannot answer this. I do not know how I look. I have never known. And at this point, I am not sure I ever will.

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