Great Expectations

I’m having a love/hate relationship with television at the moment.

Back in days before TV and the internet how aware could you really be of your life’s possibilities? Every day I’m confronted with people living their dreams. More successful people, richer people, smarter, funnier, shapelier people. Better than me in seemingly every way. I’ve started developing severe insecurities.

I suppose what really kicked all this off was America’s Next Top Model. I’ve watched the past two series, and it just seems like so much fun to me. It makes me want to be a model, but what’s worse is that it makes it seem attainable. I think that the majority of my friends are more attractive than me. Almost all of them are taller, and up until recently they were also almost all skinnier. Yet I don’t think any of them were happy with how they looked. They would debate away compliments. Make jealous remarks about my ample chest.

I was never overweight, in fact I was the “perfect size 10”, but no-one would ever classify me as skinny. I had curves. I didn’t like my thighs or my stomach (still don’t), but overall I was damn happy about how I looked. Mr. Tall worshipped my body, or at least that’s what it felt like. He’d constantly tell me how beautiful and sexy I was, always complimenting me, staring at me in admiration, being all over me even when it was inappropriate. It gave me confidence, which just made me appear even sexier. I’d go so far as to say it empowered me.

I don’t think I ever felt sexier, than after I’d worked up the nerve to give him a striptease. It’s all so bizarre thinking about it because, right now, I’m not even comfortable with him seeing me in my underwear. Never mind dancing around him while slowly removing said underwear. He still feeds me the same compliments he always did. He still desires me. I still have the exact same effect on him, but my own opinion of my appearance has completely changed.

I’ve gone from thinking that I’m sexy, and beautiful, and can have any guy I want, to thinking I’m grotesque, my body is deformed, and being paranoidly panicked about the security of my relationship with Mr. Tall. Getting upset when there’s so much as a woman walking by us wearing a short skirt, or a revealing top. It’s because it makes me feel inferior. Which makes me feel that I have finally failed at absolutely everything.