I have the same problem--I just cannot visualize myself correctly. When I see photos, or catch my image in a reflective surface, I don't really own that visage as "me". I can't seem to hold onto it once I look away.

I don't know why this is, and I've never heard anyone ever discuss it before. I thought I was just weird, too. But maybe this is just something that many people never share with anyone else. I'm glad you did.

I know what I look like b/c I wear glasses. When I see me in my mind's eye, I see my glasses. That's about it.

I think this must be true of everybody... We don't get to watch ourselves like we do other people, after all. We only see ourselves in the mirror, or in pictures and that's not the same.

Well, I feel the same anyway. My inner image of myself is very different, I think, than the reality. And I have a much harder time imagining what I look like than imagining what anyone else looks like.

That's so interesting. I've always felt that my outside is a perfect match for my inside - it just seems right to me that I have freckles, glasses, and dark brown hair - and if any of those things were missing or different it seems like I would know that it was wrong, somehow. There are lots of things I don't like about my looks, but I always feel a sense of profound sense of recognition when I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror - not just "That's me!" but "This is exactly what someone like me should look like."

I wear glasses, which feel to me like a wispy curtain I hide behind -- as if people couldn't see me clearly because "I" (there's that "I" again) am behind glasses.

That said, I do have a sense of what I look like. I'm not sure how other people interpret what I look like -- if they think I'm drab or dumpy or sparkly -- but I have a strong sense of my body and the space it inhabits. Interestingly, I feel the same way about the car I drive, an Audi A4 wagon. I can run over a dot on the road with my left rear tire! (And now that I've said that I will promptly wreck it.)

FWIW you struck me as quite tall, quite thin, and pretty in an unassuming way. I don't think photos do you justice.

Huh. Really? Thanks.

It's funny; I remember you writing a while back in a different series of posts--it might have been a comment here--how you felt that other people see you as boyish or something. I am paraphrasing, and badly. And then I met you and thought, wth is she talking about? But then you have a sense of where you are and what you look like, and the only thing I can say about it is that I am pretty sure that the person I look like and the person I am have nothing in common.

Unlike Bea.

I'm in agreement. I am also positive that the person I look like and the person I am have little in common. I'm always shocked at the pictures I see. While mirrors and picture tell me that I am short, blond, and petite, with fine wavy hair, inside I've always felt taller, stronger, and much darker - hair and skin. Since I've always had a good sense of balance and I'm a good dancer, I do have a good sense of my body in space, but otherwise, the mirror reveals nothing of the inner concept I carry of myself. I'm pretty sure the being that others see when they look at me doesn't reveal much of who I am.

Karla

My beloved and I were internet friends for nine months before we met. When we did, he was pleasantly surprised, "From everything you'd mentioned about your appearance, I was expecting Uncle Fester in drag."

That's roughly my self image. ;-)

Reading this post makes me realize that I visualize almost everyone -- not just myself -- as a disembodied brain. There are a few exceptions, people who are so extraordinarily beautiful that, for me, their physical appearance overwhelms everything else about them.

But most people? I can't see them at all.

Fascinating discussion. I think I have had a bit of both. There are times that I don't feel like my appearance looks anything like what I feel inside. There have been times when I've been much heavier than I wanted to be, by some objective metric, and I've been with assholes who have suggested it was not so pretty, but I felt incredibly sexy and just fine thanks. Other times when I had lost what I consider too much weight and that was the one time that I can honestly say I didn't really feel like "myself" because I lost my curves and boobs and looked more androgynous than I felt.

Since having kids, I've cared less about my outward appearance in a serious way, but I've played more with it. I can look quite different depending on my context and I guess I like to dress up sometimes, if it doesn't feel like I'm being forced to. So... I think I look VERY different from one context to another and I am usually trying to look different or, rather, to look more like how I feel in any given context. So, for work, I often do the glasses and hair up, makeup and dress-up clothes. I'm happy with that. On the weekend, I'm wearing my contact lenses and purely about play with the boys. I feel womanly and playful and I often feel quite boyish at the same time -- so I'm often with my hair down, no makeup, very casually dressed. I'm not sure I'd be recognized by my work colleagues on some days. But neither self feels more "me" necessarily. In other words, I think I try to use props to make me feel outwardly how I feel inside...

When I can be bothered, that is.

When I was a teenager, people often thought I was a boy. I have these super square shoulders, wider than my hips, and no breasts to speak of. Oh and I had my hair cut really short, which wasn't so common in those days.

I chose my outfit really deliberately before I went to meet you -- trying to match what I thought your expectation of me might be : )