Be Honest Now… by Miz Pink

I have a friend. No make that acquaintence. I mean I’ve been the beach with her and her kiddos and my kiddos before but I met her online first and then met her in the flesh and I sometimes wonder about her mental stability.

Okay. Let me start over. I’m on a ramble.

This gal I know…I see her online and I see her in real life.

She’s big. Aint nuthin wrong with that. I know lots of big folks and I’m not gonna rip on you for being overweight or in some cases so fat that the docs have to roll out the term ‘morbidly obese’ for you.

Now this gal I’m talking about, she isn’t sloppy or anything. I think she’s pretty well put together and all that. But she’s definitely overweight…really wide. You might use ‘Rubenesque’ to describe her but I think she’s more than a few pounds outside that realm.

So why the hell are every one of her album pics on Facebook, and the pics of her on her blog, and her Twitter avatar…why do they all look like a woman who’s a pretty average weight?

She and her husband are wizards with camera angle and lighting, and she wears clothes that slenderize her and she never has a shot that goes below mid cleavage.

My thought is: Why take shots like that?

It isn’t honest. It’s false advertising. Now I’d cut her some slack if she didn’t like her body size and shape and was desirous of being more fit. But she ain’t. She’s content with her body…it’s pretty clear from my interactions with her. She thinks pretty highly of herself in most ways (maybe too highly) and she doesn’t have any self-esteem issues.

So, why make yourself look so much different…so much ‘better’ in the sense that most people define better…online??? I don’t get it. If you’re proud of who you are, and your comfortable in your body why the need to vamp yourself up for the folks online most of whom have never met you and never will.

I don’t know why this bugs me so much but it does. Maybe because I see too many people who are one way in real life and totally different online. They are civilized humans face to face but asshats in online discussions. I guess I want people to act the way online that they do in real life, and show the same kinda pride in both places.

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Two-fer Tuesday: Faces by Miz Pink

What kinda face are you putting out there? What’s your persona? What it the way you present yourself to the world?

Because ya know there ain’t nothing wrong with have different faces with different groups or different people or in different places. We aren’t just one person but many. We have a core personality sure but that doesn’t mean we don’t tweak it for one person or anoter or tap more deeply into one aspect a certain gathering compared to another aspect at some other gathering.

It’s not dishonest to be different with different people. I don’t talk Jesus as much with my non-church-going people as I do with my Bible study group. I don’t talk about sex or relationship woes as much with my Bible study group as I do with my girlfriends.

But what we need to be sure of is that we don’t make up a personality solely for the sake of fitting in. If I am acting a fool with my girlfriends and doing things that are morally or socially questionable, I’m not being honest to my Christian core and maybe those aren’t good people to be hanging out with. If I have to manufacture safe topics to speak with my Bible study group and can never manage to find a suitable non-biblical topic of smalltalk with them, then maybe the only thing I have in common with them is faith and I would be happier and get more out of Bible study with a group of Christians with whom I connect better.

It’s nice to have variety in our relationships and how we interact. Just make sure that you’re honest to yourself and with yourself and with others when you do.