How closely does the image you have of yourself match the image others have of you?

It's quite different. I skipped a grade and am born in November, and so I have almost always been 11/2 to 2 years younger than my peers in school. I also grew pretty late (grade 11, 12) which left me young and small.

For almost all of elementary and high school, I had nothing to say. I was timid, quiet, skirted around social edges, was picked on my by older classmates a fair bit (mostly in good fun, but being so young/insecure it did sting over time), didn't play sports, and did not have anything to do with girls of any sort. In high school I also had acne and braces so the look was not that great.

I retreated inwards, I guess you could say, fell in love with books and video games and the internet, nerdy things, at the end of the day. I was quiet to the point of monkish humility and let everything pass me by.

This began to change in grade 11 and 12 when I got my braces off and grew, also developing a line of defense from insults/banter by being very witty and deflecting everything, which I attribute to reading so many goddamn books and developing a solid vocabulary.

The real change took place over the last 2 years, I got accepted to a top-tier university in the US, made new friends, and started lifting. It's been one year since I started lifting and it's changed my life. I went from being a 134lb skelly @ 5'11 to 175 lbs now, I do heavy compound lifts every day and I look a hell of a lot better. I feel better, too, and act on it. I've become far more confident in myself, willing to try new things, and had a gf, for a time, amongst other girls that I've fooled around with at college.

I wouldn't call it a "problem", but the fact of the matter is that I don't even know who I am anymore. On the outside, I appear to be a fairly built, good-looking guy, and I can talk to just about anyone - I seem very sociable and fun to be around, and can flirt til the sun comes up. Thing is, I don't perceive myself that way. It is becoming more and more unconscious, as if I don't have to act that way anymore, but especially at the beginning I forced myself to be sociable, to smile and laugh and flirt and converse. On the inside, though, I still think of myself as a skinny, quiet nerd who shouldn't be talking to girls and would rather spend time reading in his apartment and drinking tea than going out to clubs and partying or being sociable at all. I balance both sides of myself fairly well, I suppose, but it's just funny to me how I've been putting on this act and it's paid off so well that I can't dare to go back to how I was before.

Not that I want to, anyways. I'm happier now, I'd say, just not as true to myself. Hate yourself enough to change.

/r/AskMen Thread