You’re mistaking my weary surrender to inevitability for self-confidence.
I pretty much loathe everything about me, but for some bizarre reason, girls adore all the things I hate about myself. I’ve simply realized —after many, many years— that it’s dumb to keep debating them about it; I’m fortunate to be surrounded by people who see a great deal more in me than I naturally see in the mirror, and it is a disservice to us all for me to ignore them in an effort to cater to my native neuroses and someone else’s sense of propriety. So I shine a bit for them, they bask in the glow, and you end up frustrated… everyone’s happy, really.
And finally, if there’s an Afterschool Special moral to this story, kids, it’s that having an inner critic is a powerful and excellent thing —it’s the cranky little psychic furnace that generates empathy— but when the world insists that it’s seeing good things that you’re not noticing, fucking stop and listen to it once in a while. It’s possible you’re better than you suspect.
Not as good as me, obviously. But better.