Desire to be desired.

Why am I looking at myself in the mirror day after day and essentially telling myself that I am worthless and ugly and undesirable? Desirable to whom, exactly? 

I have tried to excuse my low self-esteem as "natural" and that wanting to be wanted is something that I should brush off. But it's not "natural" and the desire to be desired is somewhat false and taking its toll. I should not hate myself because I think that I am not worthy of other people's attention. I should not think that an unwarranted gaze in a nightclub or a street is validation of my beauty or my being here on this earth. 

I have so much capacity for love why do I find it so difficult to love myself? Why can I look at my friends and think "how beautiful, how wonderful, how exciting to be around" and not think the same for myself? It is myself that I live with constantly, if I hate that person what am I supposed to do then? If hell is other people then I dread to think what the person inside my head is. 

And I have written about this before and recently too, but it didn't quite have the angry force that this now does. Because I am angry, at myself and at a culture and society that has brought me up to seek validation from men. I can go so far without a guy telling me I was beautiful, why do I care so much about it?

I find it so embarrassing. How embarrassing that I should care so much what men think of me, what my face looks like, how much a glance in a mirror can bring my mood down completely. My appearance means nothing. Male appearance, most of the time, means nothing. Why, then, do I sometimes wish I could change mine to be "better"?

I have worried about how I looked since I was 11. I have hated pictures of myself, desperately tried to improve things with makeup, worried that my outfit was horrible. How horrible it is for myself. 

I will endeavour to completely and utterly love myself. I do not mean without criticism, without awareness, I just mean to say that I will not poison myself from the inside out with toxic, useless, horrid, painful, terrible, nasty little thoughts. I really, really have to stop treating myself like I am my own shit friend. Because if I had a friend who, every time she looked at me, said "you look like a 12 year old boy and no one will ever love you" (real example of bizarre thoughts I have about myself) I'd be really pissed off. I do not owe any of myself to men and their opinions do not validate my being.  I have some beautiful, wonderful male friends whom I love, but I just shouldn't really give a thought as to whether they like my face. 

It is nice to be called beautiful because someone is so overwhelmed by your entire person as your happiness and love radiate from you. It is void of meaning to be called beautiful because your face is symmetrical and matches the ideal created in magazines and porn and Hollywood. Teach yourself to know the difference, teach yourself to love yourself.