How Do You Look?

This is ridiculous, but it might be fun, so bear with me. Last night my husband and I got into a discussion about our faces. To be more specific, he’s objectively a traditionally handsome man (as evidenced by the fact that people regularly hire him to host television shows) but believes that people — including me — are “just being nice” when they tell him that, which cracks me up. Why bother, you know? But he has face dysmorphia or something and doesn’t see himself the way the world does so when people tell him he’s good-looking, he genuinely thinks they’re lying.

When he put the question to me, I thought about it and it turns out I have the opposite “problem.” I tend to think I look better than other people think I do. For example, when I head out for a night on the town, in my mind I’m like, you are working it! But then I glance around and realize there are dozens of young women in whatever room I’m in who are certifiably gorgeous and next to them I am basically a shriveled up old troll. I know objectively this is true because I live in Hollywoodland where all the most beautiful youths congregate, but it doesn’t feel right. (Oh man, I hope you’re finding this as stupid as it is.) That’s not to say I don’t have my own insecurities — those abound — but here we’re just talking about an incongruity in perception, kind of like the famous black and blue dress.