Mirror mirror?

With doubt in his head, he looked up and faced the mirror on the wall. Was it the image he wanted? He seemed to be pleased with what he saw. He saw something he could be proud of. He studied the image. He smiled while the imaged smiled back. The imaged mirrored every move. It MUST be his image. He was pleased. Until something struck him, the image is no where near what he really is. Is this a mirror? Or a projector of lies and deceit?

I think I've spent a large amount of my time devoted to making sure people have a certain idea about me. If you are wondering what i usually think about in my free time well here it is, I usually play out different senarios in my head and think about what I say or do. I would 1st act a certain way and then think about how people would react to that. I would continue doing this until I've reached a certain senario where I get to portray the image I want into my friends' heads.

I think I've become obsessed with what people think of me. I've always wanted to make myself different from others. I wanted people to think that I don't care what people think of me. I wanted to be apart from the crowd. This led to filling up my mp3 with songs of unknown artist just to get the attention. This led to purposely displaying my love for movies that other people would find boring.

I wanted to come off as someone who appreciated the fine arts like language and poetry. I wanted to show my friends that I am someone who refused to follow trends, no matter how much i wanted to. I wanted the people around me to feel as though i had no feelings and no compassion for other people. I wanted people to have a sense that I can say whatever I want to because I don't care what people may think of me. But I do.

I wanted to show people that friends are a minor part in my life. That i do not mind living alone. That i can deal with the loneliness. But sometimes, everything becomes opposite. I suddenly want people to see that i can express myself. Even before i started writing this post, i wanted to plan a strategic time where i can display it on twitter during the time when most people are online. All of this ultimately leads to me being how i want people to look at me.

The problem is, I've been doing this so long that i can no longer remember how i was back when i was truly myself. Was I awkward? Was I shy? Was I a constant pain? I seem to change my character judging by who is around me. When I'm around my school friends, I seem to want them to know that I am different from all of them and I'm special in that sense.

When i was around my swimming friends, i wanted them to think i was someone who was independent and rarely needed my parents to guide me through life. Whenever i meet new people i want their 1st impression to be that I am a someone who is well versed and can speak decently like an adult.

I wanted to show people that i was more mature for my age. That all my friends were kids and that i had to be the man among the group. That i refuse to like teenage music and movies and have silly high school crushes because i was suppose to think at a higher level. Because of that, i got easily irritated when i was categorised as being in a "teenage phase". Because of that, i got annoyed quickly at how immature some of my friends will act in fear that others will think i am just like them. Because of that, I shadowed myself in a cloak of self-centredness that forces me to always act civilised and mature at the expense of having fun or maybe even having growth experiences.

Now i don't even know who i am and often start to wonder how was i like before all this happened.

He starred at the mirror in a still state. He studied it intensely trying to find a piece, just a piece of remnants of his old self. He looked day and night but he found nothing. All he saw was an image that fulfilled the expectation of others, but not his own. This wasn't a mirror, its a black hole of what he has become. The person he once knew through and well is long gone. He fell to his knees, knowing that that person is lost forever.