A Splash in the Face

nar·cis·sism (när'sĭ-sĭz'əm)
n.

1. Excessive love or admiration of oneself.
2. A psychological condition characterized by self-preoccupation, lack of empathy, and unconscious deficits in self-esteem.
3. Erotic pleasure derived from contemplation or admiration of one's own body or self, especially as a fixation on or a regression to an infantile stage of development.
4. The attribute of the human psyche characterized by admiration of oneself but within normal limits.

What is the worst thing that ever happened in your life? When asked that question, some folks become storytellers. They become animated and act out the ordeal of losing their dog, suffering an injurious car crash, being betrayed or getting humiliated at school. My answer is quick and simple: puberty. That was when I would look in the mirror and the glasses that covered half my face went from being a form of vision-correction to an ugly intruder sitting on my face. When the zits, pimples, and blackheads that I told myself would not appear, sprouted on my face causing shock and horror. When being overweight prevented me from going swimming with the other kids, or even taking my shirt off in front of family members, my own parents. When I restricted my diet to only salad and water for weeks in high school, only to become weak-bodied, a failure in my academics, underweight and lower self-image.

A set of eye contacts, some acne product, three years of going to the gym, a car and a job later…I could admit that I was a little more in control of my situation. I could buy my own clothing, wear the stylish clothing I had envied in my classmates, dressing up against the wishes of my mother who had insisted all my life that I wear “modest” shirts that went down to my knees, drab unattractive clothing in the spirit of not imitating the evil westerners. This summer, the sun was hotter than ever, swimming pools were filling up, my body had reached its pec-n-six-pack xenith after I had worked on it for so long and so hard … and in all that was the opportunity to lift my self-esteem from the bottom of the barrel it had been for so many years.

Is a dose of narcissism the antidote for low self-image?

I went and bought the first real set of swimming trunks I had ever worn since I was nine. I went to my uni’s campus swimming pool at later hours right before the sun went down when there was nobody there but me and the lifeguard to get the sun my torso had not been exposed to for a decade (until I realized that I’m the son of middle eastern immigrants and I wasn’t going to get that golden tan everyone else had, just a very deep hue of brown). I stared at myself in the shorts and walked around in them in front of my bathroom mirror to make sure there were no deformities or blemishes, in case I hadn’t noticed one during the past two decades.

I looked at my face. Nothing I could do about that. My eyebrows connected slightly above my nose, however trimming that would be obvious to my parents, my siblings, and anyone whoever knew me for at least 15 minutes (as it had been back in the 6^th grade when I trimmed the unibrow and was punished for it), along with my homosexuality. The eye brow issue could be taken care of with sunglasses.

That hairy situation brought my attention to something else however…a tuft of hair on my chest that made a V-shape and rippled down into a navel forest that ended down south at my bush. Just a little peek of chest hair sprouting from the shirt of an attractive man drives me crazy. Hairy chests are sexy, I might as well give up my gay membership if I thought otherwise. However I wasn’t going to a gay theme park, I was going to my university’s outside campus pool. There would be no encounter with an older woman who fancied hairy ethnic pool-boys; I was going to encounter girls whose walls and computer desktops were adorned with images of Zac Efron and Orlando Bloom, not Hugh Jackman. And so I bid farewell to my God-given pelt. As the hair on my chest and tummy washed away in the shower revealing a smooth hairless torso, the evil little voice in my head that usually tried to make me feel guilty when I was being “sinful”, when I wasn’t being a “good” believer, when I didn’t heed the “values” I was taught...was instead roaring with laughter screaming one thing, you’re pathetic!

2 pm. Water and skin everywhere. The pool had reached its highest population at this time of day, the sun had reached its most scorching temperature. Doing my best to ignore the males (mission: impossible) I sat myself down in more shallow water sitting upright against the wall so that my navel and all the above were visible, half-reading a book. A ball hit the water nearby, splashing me and the book, and a hazel-eyed brunette in an aqua-green bikini followed, apologizing to me about my now partially wet book profusely as I shook my head coolly saying there was no problem, it was only a library book. She giggled and went off to her anorexic bleached green-blond friend, swimming by later to ask me what I was reading. We exchanged names and our y/m/d information (year/major/dormitory) and began floating around the pool as we conversed, knocking into bodies, giggling at some of the stunts some of frats were trying to pull. I was a year ahead of her, and began giving her advice, her major being similar to mine and requiring the same classes. I told her I was even a tutor and I would definitely tutor her if she wanted, which she was ecstatic about.

4:15 pm. We flirted, we splashed each other, she pushed my chest back into the pool as we tried to get out. I was happy and knew I’d remember those two hours with happiness and a pinch of arrogance and narcissism. We exchanged numbers and I told her to feel free to call me if she needed help with anything or if she wanted to hang out sometime. She and her friends needed to go, and I had worked up an appetite anyway so I was on my way out. I gathered up my towels and books from the pool chair and quickly looked up to see that they had gone. As I walked into the recreation facility on my way towards the locker rooms, I saw her clique up ahead and heard her voice…

“ew, he was nice, but a total bag job!”

…followed by the cackling (or girly-giggles, whichever irks you more) of her friends.

I stopped, turned around, and walked back to the swimming pool and just sat at my chair allowing the crash and burn in my chest to subside. It didn’t. My plan had blown up, she had used me as a tool just as I had used her as an object, a means to an abstract end, and this explosion was like the big bang, and it only expanded after that.

What role had I played in all this in the first place?

A fake potential big brother figure?

A fake potential tutor?

A fake potential friend?

A fake potential one night stand?

A fake potential love interest?

One thing was certain, I was all fake. And what was her role? What was I to her?

Hadn’t she come back to talk to me? Was I just a nuisance to her and her friends that entire time? Had somebody forced her to spend that time with me? To flirt with me? Did she do it out of pity? Was it all one-sided? Had I concocted all this to raise my self-esteem? Was my narcissism and arrogance just a reflex to make up for what was really missing inside me?

I didn’t have an answer to any of these, but an unasked question was indeed answered. It’s not about styling my clothes after others, it’s not about pathetically fishing for compliments from others, it’s not about impressing others…it’s not the others who will lift my spirits up. Self-image, self-worth, self-esteem can only be determined by the one’s inner self.

Mine is just fucked up.