The Stranger in Me

How I represent myself to others is pretty accurate to the way I am on the inside and out. Almost everyone has “two faces” by that I mean, we all act can act a certain way to our closest friends and loved ones compared to new faces. Most people act different in certain environments, such as in work, your coworkers may just know you as the average joe but with your closest friends and family you might be this very excited, hyper person. Having different ways of others seeing you is normal, we may not want others knowing the real you or you just don’t want to be yourself sometimes. Having multiple “faces” can be beneficial but also bad in some ways. I am not the brightest tool in the shed, but I do come in handy. I come off as a person who wants to be “liked” but doesn’t really bother me if someone may dislike me, if that makes sense in any way. I picked two pictures where I talked in one about how I represent myself to others, and in the other how I show myself to my closest friends and family. Now knowing I had two different masks was a weird experiencing when finding out because I assumed I was just being me all the time. But in reality I do act a certain way around others compared to people that I already know.

In the picture I used, it shows me smiling. This is the way I show myself to people that I am getting to know of to a bunch of strangers in a classroom that’ll i’ll be in for a few months. As you can see in the picture I am showing sort of a half smile in which it shows that I am a pretty happy person but when you actually get to know me, I am way more goofy and the smile can be twice as big. The selfie is a picture I am comfortable showing others because it’s really the way they see me. You can take a picture of me without knowing and I am most likely smiling because I like being a joyful person. Don’t get me wrong, you can’t always be happy, but trying too does make it better. The selfie doesn’t define me as the person I show myself to be, it only presents how I show myself to people who have yet to gotten to know the real me. Although I show myself as a happy person, I am very shy when it comes to meeting others. I usually don’t like being the one to start the conversation unless I have too, but if we start talking I can really start being myself. The smile you can say is my mask, it really does represent the kind of person I try to show others I am. This is the mask I have on most of the time because i’m afraid of new people will think of me if they knew how I really acted if I was to use my other face. So having a smile on my face can get me by. Although I seem happy, a picture can mean so much, Fred R. Branard said, “A picture is worth a thousand words”. In the selfie it shows me smiling but deep down I am afraid of what sort of negativity people think of me if they really got to know me. That may sound a little cliche but I can't stand negativity towards others, and that's why I tend to hide my real face and put on this half smiling face just to get by.

In the second picture, the self portrait shows me being happy and weird because that's truly the way I am. I tend to be weird and try do funny things with close friends of mine. The self portrait is me with a close friend of mine, we have been friends for over 6 years and we have done so much together. We played soccer all 4 years in high school, worked at the same job and hang out a lot. Friends like him know the real weird, goofy me. I like to sometimes go out of my comfort zone even though I’m a bit shy. I am very outgoing as well I like to try new things such as trying new sports, crazy activities etc… Just these last few months, I tried snowboarding and loved it. I got pretty good at it too which was a big boost to my ego. I’ve even decided that this year was going to be my best year yet. I want to travel and visit some places, I want to try skydiving, scuba diving, going to Swiss and try snowboarding out there. I want to do better in school and make this year as great and enjoyable as it can be. That’s the person I really am, I want to try and make life as enjoyable as possible. Comparing the two photographs is really interesting because one shows only a part of me that strangers know but the other shows a fun, weird, young kid who just wants to make the best of life with close friends. I tend to wear the mask of my half smile mainly at school, work just to get around with the day. But when I wear my other mask, I like to talk, laugh and enjoy. I like the second picture more because it shows what a person I am but it doesn't show you everything about me. As I said, a picture can only represent so much, I can’t just be a joyful kid and not have problems. I always like to be right so it can really affect my friends which later effects me and my day can be ruined. Sometimes people like to judge for the way that I act but I mean that's human, there will always be someone who hates on you. I like to work on things that I did wrong but honestly, I like the person that I tend to be and no one should change something that they like.

In conclusion, everyone has a mask that they tend to use on certain people and that's fine. I didn’t even notice that I had two face before doing this project. My two faces are two different people and in a way it’s kind of scary but natural. It took me a while to really figure out what kind of person I am. When I am around my closest friends with the second mask I am the most happy a person can be because they know the real me and I don't have to be fake around them. I assumed that I have nothing to hide, but we all do and it’s nice figuring yourself out. These photos help me recognize myself in ways I am around others. One face is for people i'm shy from or don't know yet and my other face is me being weird, goofy for the people closest to me. Knowing what I know now really opened up my eyes when looking at other pictures. Just like in Plato’s cave, sometimes there’s a bigger meaning in the picture. I never understood the meaning in photographs, but it really is beautiful what people can try and represent without really showing much. You really can do so much with photographs, and it's crazy to me how so people are so good at it.