How Social Media Makes You Feel Worse About Yourself. Always.

Before I start lamenting, let me just preface the following with this: I have not now, or ever, suffered from low self-esteem or lack of confidence. I don’t look in the mirror and constantly wish to surgically alter any specific feature on my face or body.

But….all that aside, how annoying is it to sign into whatever social media outlet you happen to be using, and be bombarded with picture after picture of perfect looking girls? No, they’re not models. They’re just everyday girls with their everyday looks. Yet, somehow they just. Look. So. Good. What the effin’ hell dude.

Now I understand there are tools called filters that work like magic on the lighting and color of a photo, lending to the overall beauty of it. But even still, there exists so many girls who have such perfect structure, glossy hair and eyebrows on FLEEEEEEK. Their makeup perfectly applied, hair tousled to perfection, lips that are not chapped. I look at them and am forced to ask myself the question: “Am I missing some vital girl gene?” Because for the life of me, these are all things I cannot achieve on my own. And sadly, even if I could, I still wouldn’t achieve the perfection that is the Girls of Social Media. I wouldn’t come close to looking like them.

And it just makes me a sudden degree of sad. Because for all my efforts I’m only so good-looking — as in there is a definite statute of limitations.

This way of thinking is dangerous I know. Comparison is, after all, the death of happiness. But seeing beautiful pictures all the time just makes you realize — you’ll never have those cheekbones. Those dimples. The tall body. The gorgeous eyes. Seeing a picture that makes you go, “Damn that girl has nice hair! That’s how I wanted my hair to look, but couldn’t make it work,” happens way too often. Sure, it’s because of the sheer number of pictures available to see, but still.

You are you, but throughout the great big world exists these chicks who don’t know (or maybe they do) how their appearance is a beacon for admiration, and it all seems so effortless. The author Khaled Hosseini once wrote that, “Beauty is an enormous, unmerited gift given randomly, stupidly” and it’s true. Life is easier for a good looking person, and opportunities open just a bit more quickly for them as well. But alas, all is not lost.

Here’s how I finally console myself — I’m awesome. I just remind myself that I LIKE myself, because I do and quite honestly, and cheesily enough, that is the important thing. I don’t know the stories behind those so-called good looking girls but I know mine and it’s a good one.