When I joined Facebook in 2007 as a married working mother, selfies were barely a “thing.”
While creating my profile – for work – I was protecting my personal information. I followed all privacy updates, kept my Wall locked to friends only, and was careful not to post anything that didn’t fit with the public image others expected me to present.
Fast forward to 2012.
As soon as my ex-husband and I told our children and those in our careers that we were divorcing, I leaped. Anyone who has been divorced or gone through a major breakup in the past five years will be well aware of this.
I changed my relationship status on Facebook to single.
This may sound corny, but it’s huge. huge.
Once my divorce was final, I became more active on social media.
In addition to taking more risks with what I was willing to share, I changed my profile picture for the first time in years. Hazar! Now that I no longer have to match anyone’s vision but my own, I can play with any image.
Without realizing it, this meant I could play with my identity. Something I desperately needed to solve.
How did I want the world to see me that day, week or month? How did I want to see myself?
Sometimes when I changed profile pictures, I worried that my friends might start thinking I was a narcissist.
There are a lot of jokes about selfie addicts, and here I was learning to respect myself again — not trying to disrespect myself more.
I’m reasonably self-aware, so I knew vanity was not the motivation behind changing my image. However, I have a history of not thinking enough of myself to expect to be treated the same way I would treat someone else.
I was interested in getting other perspectives on the same phenomenon and did a little research.
According to an article in Psychology Today, a recent study found that “both narcissism and self-objectification were associated with spending more time on social networking sites and with more photo editing…Self-objectification [usually] is associated with lower self-objectification.” Respect, is the exact opposite of narcissism, which is linked to high self-esteem.
This study supposedly “confirms” the idea that narcissists post more selfies than the general public.
However, the study’s sample was only 1,000 men — zero women — making it small and unrepresentative at best, and it did not specify whether people who participated in the study posted the photos as news uploads or as profile photos.
People in the first scenario probably won’t turn out to be selfie freaks. Maybe they’re in the second scenario, but if so, they probably were like that before marriage anyway. The student in the third scenario is likely too busy asking someone new to bother changing their profile picture often.
It’s the giver from the third scenario, most likely not a narcissist, whose recent image change might get you noticed.
Strange right?
Not when you think about narcissists, don’t worry about what you think of them. They love themselves and assume you love them too.
It’s those of us in the self-esteem-challenged section who worry about your opinion because we’re not sure how we feel about ourselves.
The first photo I used of myself after the divorce was from a black tie event before the divorce. I chose it because I thought I looked pretty, and I wanted to feel pretty. Looking at him today, I could see that I didn’t look happy. big difference.
#Then I tried taking selfies.
It was great to see if what I captured in that photo reflected my self-image for me.
This has become a simple way to rethink myself on any given day.
About a year into my selfie development, I met someone I hadn’t seen since my divorce. During our conversation, she complimented me on my good looks on Facebook. She also told me that a few of my formerly close friends—whom I “lost touch” with after my divorce—were gossiping about my frequently changing profile pictures and how full I was.
In particular, they considered one selfie I took wearing red lipstick to be irrefutable proof of my new, arrogant persona.
