Putting your best Facebook forward

Despite my hermit-like avoidance of social networking sites, I land on a few from time to time. None hold my attention for very long, but I do thumb through the pictures despite the often

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

shallow and redundant content. Cameras can now take hundreds of pictures which should greatly magnify our ability to capture rare events and brief moments in time, yet the majority of online photo albums feature the same predictable scenes: friends posing as if staged for a portrait, holding up their drinks, flashing their "victory" fingers or wagging their tongues (how happy the day will be when this trend dies).

The background, foreground and context are ignored and candidness apparently goes without consideration, unless of course it's in catching someone in a compromising situation. This raises the real point of concern.
When teens through twenty-somethings are documenting the unruly, experimental, law-breaking, party-dedicated experiences of their youth, what kind of photographic legacy are people leaving for their children?

The photos I have of my relatives are respectable scenes, depictions of civil social gatherings. I don't have a picture of my grandfather doing a keg stand or my mother hanging on men who were not my father. I know they were all young once and went through similar experiences, maybe made similar mistakes, but the world wasn't watching then. Their was no chance their embarrassing situations would end up on YouTube.

When generations down the line are assigned a genealogy project for school, they'll compile their ancestral information with ease by simply plugging our names into Google. What sorts of images will they find?

Who am I to question me?

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

As I returned to work this morning with my Starbucks coffee in hand, I began to wonder about who I had become and how far from my twenties' self I had strayed. There was a time when the day began at noon and a beer for breakfast was not a rarity. I was a failure at school, had no goals or dreams for a stable future, and lived only for the moment. The word venti was nowhere in my vocabulary.

Though I was aware of the disapproval others had for my lifestyle, I was fine with being emotionally driven, motivated only by prospects of pleasure, in search of the next good time. I was a hedonist, and felt no guilt for sluffing responsibility for the immediate return of self-gratification.

Time passed and I didn't die a young rebel going out in a blaze of glory. To my surprise I got older and life progressed, if not at least continued. I dropped out of college, was fired from several jobs, and regarded my friends and family as faded apparitions.

Years Later.
Now I'm working in a respected profession, making a decent salary, and live in a trendy Midtown Atlanta apartment. Reflecting on that past era in my life I suppose I should see how stupid I was or consider those years a waste, but I don't. I was young, directionless, and a bit of a thick-headed jerk, but I was pursuing happiness which is what we're all still doing.

The old me never wanted to be a button-down, stuck up, Starbucks drinking professional, and never thought he would be. The old me would have knocked the overpriced chain retailer coffee right out of my hands. I hope however, with some explanation, he would still be okay with who I am.

Okay. I'm a bit typical. I do what most guys my age do, still clinging to their youth. I drink beer when I can and wear throwback T-shirts to show people how cool I still am. (I'm okay with my Atari shirt and my Bob Ross Happy Trees tee.)

Part of me needs the respect and understanding of my old self, hoping I'm not what I would have considered a "total sell-out." The newer part of me though wants to punch the old me right in the nose and tell him to "get it together."

I know however that I am both men, a blend of the good and bad parts of each. So I've started to look to the future and make some plans, but I can still be impulsive. I'm a working professional but I still say inappropriate things around coworkers. I make more money than I used to but I'm still cheap, er thrifty. (I saved my coffee cup from the day before to get the refill discount the following day.)

I'll never be truly comfortable as a button-down type, though that's mostly due to my problem with losing buttons off my shirts. I'm not too worried about becoming a faceless conformist because I'm still a snob when it comes to music and movies. I've used valet parking and been to a non-movie theater show, but I'm not a materialistic upper class citizen. (My class is well revealed just by how I spell theater.)

I may drink Starbucks but I still have a few steps to go before I'm a completely pretentious douche bag prick. When I buy a BMW and start yelling at hotel staff I'll become worried. Until then I think both old and new me have balanced out just fine.

The window treatments to the soul

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My attraction for women is not always founded on baseline physical attributes, meaning a well dressed woman or one that takes the extra time with her hair can be equally as attractive as one with well formed curves. There are many variables in play as to what might peak my interest in any given woman. Some of these variables I acknowledge and understand as obvious reasoning or perhaps having cross-related areas of pleasure.

One such example is my affinity for waitresses. There is no struggle for logic here. It is a woman who brings me food and drink upon request. She is beautiful in my eyes. The added flirtation that has worked its way into the food service industry is just a bonus element, holding parallels to well established "dance" clubs and houses of ill repute. It consists of women feigning intrigue for a man with the end goal of slimming down his wallet, a lifelong exchange of money for coquetterie. This is a condition for which both men and women are at fault and both are worse off with its perpetuation. Women monetarily win out in the short run but ultimately lose, having continuously failed relationships and finding it hard to discern why men don't take love seriously.

My less transparent attraction enhancement, in both rationale and reality, is when a woman wears sunglasses. Every woman, regardless of age or physical makeup, is slightly more of a woman behind those tinted shields. Within a world of fading mystery, there is little left untouched or beyond comprehension or examination. It is silly, but in plastic eyeware I can find a bit of wonder again.

What color are her eyes? Green? Brown? Red with tears?

Is she looking off into the distance or staring at me?

The eyes reveal so much about a person and stripping this essential insight into one's humanity causes my imagination to churn. As a character in my mind, her depth is endless, but the fantasy proves time and again to be better than the tangible truth. All good stories have a sad ending depending on when you stop reading, and eventually the glasses come off. The majority of the time, like with the bras of today, what was covered looked better before, and the thrill subsides. Every once in awhile though the mystery woman is as she was supposed to be, a reflection of projected perfection. It's then that the world seems right and my day is better for it.