Celebrity, persona, reality

The main reason I can't be Facebook friends with the loml at this time is my vulnerability to her image, to pictures of her. Well, that combined with the way men react to pictures of her, and how jealous that makes me. Of course it was a photograph (and an unlikely one at that) that caught my attention 18 months ago. This is the currency of social media- the image. Why certain images floor us and others do not is anyone's guess. I wonder if the same is true for women as it is for men. 

Beautiful Narcissus

I know I am as prone to indulging in the male gaze as any male. I can be very superficial and crush on someone just based on their photo. I am also prone to the usual acculturated male interest in erotic images. In all of these ways, there is nothing extraordinary about me at all. 

I often felt that the loml was signaling flirtation and interest in male attention with her profile pictures, but I fully acknowledge that this was all my interpretation and projection. The fact was, she did get a lot of male attention. She occasionally expressed exasperation at the boundary crossing that would happen. At the same time, we were both jealous of various people at various times, and, at least as far as I know, none of the jealousy was ever warranted. I bet there were men who held more fascination for her that I didn't even know about and "should" have been jealous of but was not. 

This goes to other aspects of social media that are toxic for me. I have come to think of the dynamics as essentially the same as those for celebrities. The dynamics of public persona, image, power and fame. Because it seems, psychologically, scale doesn't matter. Social media affords us a chance to create a persona, an image and to generate interest in that, rather than in ourselves. We run our own little marketing, branding and media empires, and carefully calibrate our choices and know the effect we would like to create. I know a great many twenty-something women, especially, mostly former students of mine, who perform these decisions deliberately and make money in various ways from their online personae. 

I know many women who post "sexualized," erotic photos of themselves but who seemed surprised by the thirsty and desperate reactions of a lot of cis het men. The power dynamics are very odd. I think, when we get a sense of having this kind of power of attraction and attention, and we know how to create a context for an ego boost and for flattery, we tend to exploit it. But we also tend to resent it. I think, especially women tend to resent it because men are dicks. 

Men are 100% responsible for their responses and their behavior, and I am not in any way shape or form policing the ways women present themselves. I sometimes expressed jealousy to the loml about a particular interaction or whatever, and this never went anywhere with her. For whatever reason, as I've mentioned before, she did not offer much reassurance. At least not that I recall. 

The moment I knew Facebook would be toxic between the two of us, for me anyway, was after she ended the affair and used a profile pic that had been intended for me in the past. I told her months ago that I loved the pic, and she told me she was thinking of me and looking at me into the camera. Why she would have chosen to use that same pic after we had broken up is anyone's guess, and when I mentioned it to her she offered no explanation or apology. We periodically ran up against this collision between my sentimental sensitivity and her apparent cluelessness. But more than that, I think she just does not want any man saying anything to her about any of the ways she presents herself on her own social media, and who could blame her? Certainly male attempts to control the way women show themselves are a huge part of the patriarchy, and a ton of the energy of selfie culture and third wave feminism is to reclaim that power. 

I like posting profile pics where I think I look handsome and getting the attention, also. It's a boost to my ego. I have never felt good looking, so social media has provided some interesting alternatives to my insecurity around my appearance. The rise of social media coincided with me being increasingly photogenic, in unexpected ways. Lots of women comment on certain of those profile pics and this sparked jealousy in the loml as well. 

In general, I think social media makes trust difficult. The green dot and the seen notification combined destroyed my trust in the loml repeatedly, rightly or wrongly. I spent many weeks utterly convinced that she was engaged in extensive communication with other men, and probably erotic play at that. My intuition would be on high alert a great deal of the time. She swears this was not operating, but my intuition was so strong I often just felt gaslighted after that, even when I "knew" I should trust her. It's funny too, because some of the time she would tell me what she had been doing, and believe me, it was not involved with other men, nor was it erotic. 

I am glad to be out from under that. I recalled that I have access to compersion regarding her pleasure and sex life and I wish her the greatest experiences along those lines. I can't imagine she will just be asexual now. It doesn't seem to be in her nature, as far as I know her. Sex is grand, sometimes even if it ain't that great. It's enjoyable and it's nourishing. I don't want to live without it, in the long run, and I'm sure neither does she. So reflecting with some distance on these human truths reduces my jealousy sometimes and abates the sense of wanting to know with certainty what is going on and why. It's none of my business. 

This is always a difficult turn, after a breakup. What was all of our business quite suddenly is none of our business. Very jarring. 

Anyway, ultimately, I am frustrated a lot of the time lately that I have the feelings I have. My mind tells me I "should not" feel romantic, tender, aroused, yearning, sad, or even angry and resentful, toward her. I should "be over it by now." That I "should not be remembering." But I am happier when I just allow the soft animal of my body to love what it loves, and accept my feelings, and stop trying to force or alter. Certainly, ruminating and perseverating and wallowing are no bueno, so I have been practicing some behavioral skills with those behaviors. A few people have rushed in to bad mouth the loml and that is always a weird thing. People who don't even really know her. It's an interesting impulse that people intend to be protective, I'm sure. But in the loml, in spite of her flaws, I know a woman who is kind, generous, authentic, patient, brilliant, weird, has a great sense of humor, is dedicated to her children, hard working, honest, etc. I do feel she enjoys power and holding power over others, including me, and I think she takes criticism defensively. I think she kills her emotions more than she has to. I think she lets fear run her life too much. But these are all things I do also, and I never idealized her anyway. 

Part of the guts of what we had was that we met each other directly and had a wordless understanding of our humanity, our flaws, our fascinations. I never felt disillusioned, because I never felt illusioned. I miss her all day, every day, to varying degrees. My mind and my ego are offended by that. It's too bad, because nothing I do to try to manage it makes any difference. Acceptance is key.