i think you guys might be thinking about yourselves too much

just for the record im guilty of this myself,.. i volunteered at a fashion festival recently and all the lessons i learned about self confidence after quitting social media went out the door. 

i was comparing myself non stop to MODELS, people who get paid for their looks. I was also comparing myself to other beautiful volunteers. i received zero compliments back when i gave them out and it hurt my ego. i had completely forgotten this truth: white people (for the majority of the people there were white) do not see coloured people, especially south asians, as humans with beauty. for the most part in my experience. and if you think i'm wrong you havent really been exposed to the world very much, or youre a defensive white person. 

so there i was, seething that nobody would recognise me for my looks, my style, that maybe everyone thought i was ugly and weird and nobody would wanna talk to me. not true--i ended up being great friends with some nonwhite people.

but anyway, thats not the point of this post; im not here to just spew out the same commentary over and over about how us south asians don't have any agency in the west or arent seen in a good light yadda yadda.

i want to talk about: WHY THE FUCK DID I CARE SO DAMN MUCH? 

ive been having probably the greatest august of my life. Been going out a lot, hanging w my boyfriend, listening to great music, been off social media and engaging with my actual hobbies, just feeling great because spring is almost here... then those moments of "im so ugly im so awful im so this im so that" came in and harshed on my vibe a lot during a great experience, becayse the fashion festival was amazing. i let my ego and, frankly, a very narcissistic attitude cloud my experience. and this is something i have to reckon with. i think about myself way too much. 

ive learned to think of my appearance within like the frameworks of like racial relations, localised beauty standards etc etc. ive learned how to objectively look at beauty. but damn its fucking hard to not think about yourself when society is obsessed with The Self and Individualism wven when youre off social media. whether its the fashion festival or whether youre just going outside and somebody wants you to take a billion photos of them for their instagram, it plagues you. i can say however much i want that this is all just capitalism trying to make me feel bad and the ceo of loreal cracking their knuckles to make me feel worse or whatevwr but the thing is it still makes me feel bad. and i know im not the only one. 

i know that millions billions of people feel the exact same way as me. i think weve been taught to think about ourselves way too much and overanalyse how we must be perceived by those "better" than us in any space. weve been taught to create this internal competition wherever we go. i just wish i knew how to not do that. how do i stop seeing myself in the third person and methodically comparing myself to other people? how do i put those theories of race, gender, western society etc etc into practice in my subconscious and not let it get to me so much?

im not even unattractive. i have a boyfriend who thinks im beautiful and ive gotten positive attention for my looks from both men and women, of all races. but that fashion festival really set in stone for me just how much whiteness rules and brownness is cast away. 

i was on everskies and a girl was crying about being a dark skinned east asian and how she cant dress in lolita clothing because people would think she was ugly. and i was like, wtf? who the fuck actually cares about you enough to think that at all? they'd probably see you and think literally nothing, maybe "nice outfit" or something, not "look at this dumb bitch how dare she dress lolita even tho her skin is dark". then i thought about myself. im literally guilty of this too. i dont think anyone at all was looking at me thinking "ew shes so ugly i dont wanna speak to her". like in all actuality they saw me and forgot about me or didnt acknowledge my looks or whatever but didnt HATE me , just didnt find me attractive, and thats fine. nobody cares about how i look but i guess that made me feel unattractive too, idk. i guess that girl feels the same. but also WHYYY. Why why why why must we feel this way. i dont wanna be beholden to white beauty standards i dont even  wanna be AROUND WHITE PPL ANYMORE TO BE COMPLETELY HONEST LOL. 

stop thinking about yourself and live in the moment i guess is the best thing you can rly do. how do you do that in environments where fashion/appearances are important? dismantle those frameworks that have shaped your thinking. how do you throw away the parts that you've dismantled from your head, though? what do i do with all the leftover pipes and scaffolding lying around after i've torn them down? build a new scaffold, a new framework, around myself. how do i do that? where do i get the materials?

sigh. 

this is a nonsensical post with no structure or no point, im just venting...