#13. Can you see me?
More importantly... can I see me?
I stand on the patio in the sticky too-early heat of April, sweeping soggy maple seeds from the concrete. I need something to do, so I choose the most unimportant chore imaginable. I catch a glimpse of myself in the segmented window panes of the door into my bedroom — horrified, as usual.
I rest my hand on my stomach and arch my back. I figure I’d look beautiful if I was pregnant, a belly full of babe and not padded with dirty martinis and fried foods of all shapes and kinds. Now, I’m on a beach, and I am barefoot, blissful in maternity. I am in a hospital, cold jelly smeared on my abdomen as a nice girl in Figs scrubs scans my insides for signs of life. I am at home, with a gorgeous, successful partner who is rubbing my feet, feeding me ice cream, and putting together a crib without getting frustrated.
It alarms me that the contours of my figure would look exactly the same if I were really with child — narrow limbs attached to a round center. A marshmallow pegged by candy cigarettes. But it’s not really worth it for me every time to rehash my — and every other woman’s — relationship to the physical form, specifically fatness. Instead, I resort to a gentle sort of play, an imagination of myself that is more palatable, even sought after.
“The looking-glass self” — a concept named in a way I’m not so much a fan of — is the idea that we shape the way we see ourselves through how we imagine others see us. At this point, it is so innate that I can’t imagine separating self-perception and the perception of others. If other people have eyeballs, connected to their optic nerves, connected to their brain, which in itself is a series of many connections between lived experiences, knowledge, and miscellaneous ephemera, why wouldn’t it make sense to consider that a system that is at least somewhat reliable? In that case, are my opinions of others even remotely reliable? Hello?
I try to reframe my obsession with the way others perceive me through a metaphorical wrist slap, reminding myself I am not so important that everyone is thinking of me all the time. They are barely perceiving me — even those with eyeballs and optic nerves and brains full of ideas are often shielded from me, my physical form, the way I am without artifice. I sit outside a cafe with a plastic cup of coffee and a book, and I think of how everyone who passes by must be looking at me and thinking about me and wondering about me. They must think I that think I am so interesting, I think, but I’m more self-aware than that. I know how this looks. I do actually read, not just on Saturdays at coffee shops, but also sometimes in bed or on the couch when no one is watching. A woman picks up her dog’s shit five feet away from me, and I am reminded that no one cares.
I see the entire picture of myself, in a chair on the alleyway. No one is walking by, and even if they were, it doesn’t mean they are examining me, or even noticing me. I am merely a set piece, an artifact, scenery. Much like the chewing gum and candy wrappers and torn receipts, I am a thing that has been dropped on the sidewalk. So are all the others at the tables beside me. It’s a devastating reality.
One afternoon at this bar, I found myself between two regular barflies, politely exchanging with them as I waited for the bartender to notice me and my empty glass. It was taking so long that I, in a panic, looked at my watch, slipped my cash back into my purse, and politely excused myself. I told them sorry, and that I had to go, and that it was nice meeting them, but I didn’t realize how late it was (6:48 PM).
I have to make dinner, I said, in this exasperated sort of way, this way of portraying a life I had where others relied on me for their sustenance, just through the way I caught my breath in the words. It suddenly felt like the air between us shifted — I was no longer a desperately lonely spinster on her way back to her stuffy one-bedroom apartment, but someone betrothed to another someone, the most important thing a person can do. Yes, she must go, I imagined them thinking, she has things to do as an important person in the world. (Author’s note: The ever-iconic Kate Berlant recently recounted her employment of this trick on Poog, wherein she told she construction workers that woke her up early that she “works nights”).
Nothing about me had changed, except now two alcoholics believed I had a fuller life (if you believe that romantic partnership and children can make a full life even fuller). To them, I had vegetables to peel. A dishwasher to load. News to bring home about life on the outside world, what happened during wifey’s alone time.
I imagined them imagining me, and stepping back into my home — which reeked of the garbage I had been too lazy to take out in the morning — I leaned on this imagination the same way in which I have leaned on a hand gently placed on the stomach.