Fake Confidence: The Queen of Selfies

I don’t have a lot of confidence when it comes to my looks. I know that it might seem different to those seeing my pictures or even those I run into in real life. My friends were and often are confused and honest about how someone with my body shape is always able to have a bunch of guys hitting on her, following her around, crushing on her. If we now don’t focus on how there is a lot of fat-shaming in that kind of thought and just go with the assumption that men usually go for the ones that are pretty and somewhat normal.

My friends assumed it was about confidence. I tried to make it seem to be about personality and wit. It is most likely a combination of both. But here is the thing: I don’t have confidence about my looks. So for a long time I have been baffled by that odd paradox of me hating my body and the way I look, and how others see me. Until I finally realized that it is about one thing that I am incredibly good at: faking confidence!

Fake Confidence

And people, there goes a lot of work into faking confidence! You need to wear that mask and you need to wear it well! It is about accentuating the parts of yourself that you like, and hiding those you find terrible. It is about seeming calm and in control, and very much about the way you hold your head up high when walking down the street. But the best way to fake confidence? Posting selfies of yourself!

I have been called the queen of selfies, and there is a good reason for that. I know how to stage a good picture of myself! And there goes a lot of work into that, because you know, we want to seem like we are confident, right? It needs to be the perfect make-up, the perfect hair, the perfect angle, the perfect shot. And that sort of thing takes time. And it needs to feel right too. So even when I have done my make-up, I am wearing something I feel okay in, and I know which angle would work, I can still panic about it.

It is all about Control

While I am taking the pictures, I am in control. I am in control of the angles, of the way I look, of what is shown. I am in control of how other see me. I can show the most possible perfect version of myself. In that version I have confidence in my looks because I only show the sides that I am most comfortable with. My face, my eyes, certain angles that show my body shape in a way that it looks rubenesque instead of fat.

When I started taking selfies, it was all about my face and all about my hair. I am good with make-up and I have always had crazy hairstyles. The fake confidence has a lot to do with the goth thing as well. People generally assume that goths are bold, badass, strong and are not afraid to show themselves. I mean, we stick out, so we would want to stick out, right? The reason why I am goth or like a certain style has absolutely nothing to do with what others think of me, or how I portray myself to others. It is about the aesthetics I love. I don’t dress for others, I dress for myself.

And the same goes for selfies. I take them to feel good about myself. Of course I appreciate when I get comments and likes, and when people ask me for make-up tips. But that is not the most important thing for me. They are showing a version of myself that I am okay with. They are showing me in a light that I can accept. Because I am able to hide the parts of me that I dislike. I absolutely love that I am in control how others, and myself, see me. I present myself in a light when I can have that fake confidence, that idea that I look good. While it is more like I am able to show solely the side of myself that I feel good about.

I have become bolder with my selfies. First, they were only for me. Then I started posting them on social media, first only my face. And then I got more and more naked, especially when I joined Fetlife. Up until then, the only naked or sexy selfies I had taken, were for my partners. And even then, they were rarely spontaneous, they were planned and prepared. There are only very few selfies out there of me not wearing any make up. And those often have a silly snapchat filter on them.

How to take the perfect picture

So how do I take selfies? Well, once I am all prepared, wearing make up, the right clothes and the right jewelry, I try to find a scene or position that I know has the right angle. And the first few pictures are often a disaster. I freak out about how terrible, old, fat or tired I look. But then I adjust the phone, change the lightening and try another angle. It doesn’t always mean that I am comfortable, I have suffered more than once for the perfect picture! I tend to take about 30 pictures or so per scene, and then I flick through them. I quickly delete those that I wouldn’t want anyone to see, and then I try different filters and editing tools, to make my pictures look okay enough to be shared with the world.

Sometimes I take half-spontaneous selfies, like when I am out and about. I might like my outfit, or the background is just too beautiful to be missed. And some of them, yes, some of them, actually turn out okay.

There are still some pictures I wish I hadn’t taken, many of them, to be honest. I felt okay with them in the moment, and they definitely still express that fake confidence. But looking at them now, I feel embarrassed. They have the wrong angle, there is a tiny thing I wasn’t aware of before. I don’t delete them though and I don’t think I have ever deleted a picture on social media.

These days, I sometimes instruct my partner to take a picture of me. And you know, if we get the angle right, I can still do the editing, and the fake confidence shines through. But I think I will always prefer being in control of the whole process. Because I have realized that with time, I have become a tiny bit more confident with how I look in pictures. As long as I am in control, and the angle is right, and I don’t look too fat, and the fake confidence is plastered all over the image.

Read my post Evolutionary and Revolutionary about taking nudes.