A few months ago, someone tagged me in a photo challenge thing on Facebook. Mutual friends were also tagged and, in turn, tagged me in theirs. Within a week, five people had challenged me to the same thing.

It’s seemingly pretty simple. Post five pictures of yourself that make you feel beautiful.

Simple…. unless you are me.

Now, I love challenges. I also like groupings, and themes, and organizing. So I wanted to do it. But…

I hate myself.

Dramatic? Perhaps. But 100% true. Christian Grey has nothing on me.

My first (and second and third, etc.) reaction to this challenge was, “Too bad. Impossible.” No such pictures exist. I couldn’t even pick ONE picture where I felt beautiful. Because that never happens. I see myself as ugly.

Beauty, to me, entails a level of perfection. I am soooooo far from perfect. When I look in the mirror, all I see is flaws. It’s sad. And it hurts. I’m not pretty. Most of the time, I think I shouldn’t even show myself in public.

But here I am, months later feeling …off… because I didn’t accept/complete this challenge. In fact, I ignored each and every post. No explanation as to why. (I’m just a jerk that never responds to anything on FB.) I didn’t want to tell them my reason because I didn’t want anyone to feel sorry for me or try to tell me otherwise. I am not one to say something negative about myself as a way of fishing for compliments. Compliments actually make me very uncomfortable. (Very odd for a praise junkie. But that’s all about achievement – things I’ve done. Not looks or personality. Unless you tell me I’m funny. I love hearing that. …But only if it’s true. LOL.)

But how pathetic that I can’t find just five pictures of myself that I like.

Since I feel I can’t actually complete this challenge as it was posed but have that lingering feeling of unease for having left it, I’m going to do the closest thing I can. Five pictures to post on FB where I feel “socially acceptable”. (I was almost going to say ‘comfortable’, but even that leaves room to tear myself down for one reason or another. How can I feel comfortable when there are so many things to fix? *sigh* Anyway…)

Five pictures I don’t hate. Close as I can get. Challenge accepted.

(originally posted to wohngsikneuih)