It's my general understanding that dudes just don't give that much of a shit about it? That can't be right either.
"About it" w/r/t themselves? Of course one is too thoughtful and refined to examine one's reflections, looking for abdominal definition as sad, divorced and unemployed aerospace engineers look for UFOs in the Nevada desert, but one regularly overhears men in locker rooms lamenting their ventral dimensions, complimenting others' muscle definition, asking slimmer, more muscular bros for advice, etc. One has been complimented several times by strangers on losing the weight gained in the law firm purgatory.
"About it" w/r/t women? Sadly, they do, but perhaps not on precisely the same lines as women do. "She's a little heavy," "Whoa, she's husky" and "She's too thick" may not be as damning as some of things that douchebags say on Jersey Shore, but the standard is still pretty exacting.
"Surely the mirror should be the same as the photograph?"
No, the mirror is the reverse of the photo. It's particularly obvious if there's something that's asymmetric about your appearance (part in your hair, birthmark on one side, etc.) so you look "wrong" to yourself when you see a picture because you much more often see yourself in a mirror, even though the picture is how you look to the rest of the world.
BUT WHY AREN'T YOU UPSIDE DOWN IN THE MIRROR TOO???
You are upside down in a mirror, silly. It's just that because you're looking at it upside down, you can't tell.
Not that it's worth claiming, but 3 was me.
3: oooooooh, now I get it. it's like australia!
1: I meant, men don't care, with regard to their own persons. as much, clearly.
It's my general understanding that dudes just don't give that much of a shit about it?
More or less, personally speaking. I'm annoyed I put on a bit of weight when I gave up smoking, but mostly because I had to buy new trousers. I certainly don't have any anxiety about my body, just low level dissatisfaction that I can't be bothered to do anything about.
On the mirror/photo thing, I'm the opposite in that I think I look worse in photos than the mirror. But that could be because I hate having photos taken of me so I usually try to mess them up on purpose.
I've been monitoring my weight using a fancy wifi-having scale that tells my computer how much I weigh every time I step on it and also does a crude measurement of body fat. Plotting the time series you can see when I quit smoking as the starting point of a nice gentle 25 pound rise. Having fallen off the wagon I looked for a similar gentle decline, but no fucking luck. I'm going to have to rely on the gymn and eating right.
5.2: Probably not. Certainly in a very different key, too, because men can displace so much more of their appearance anxiety onto women and their crazy standards, bro, what's up with that? I said in my dating profile that I had three varieties of psychedelic mushrooms growing in the folds of my neck fat! It's not like she didn't know! Bitches, right? [Fist bump. Lonely cheap beer of righteous self-ignorance.]
Maybe the concerns will become more similar as Internet feminism and consumerist Internet masculinity progress.
On the mirror/photo thing, I'm the opposite in that I think I look worse in photos than the mirror.
I'm with you. I think I'm fairly fetching when I catch sight of myself in a mirror, while photographs send me into spirals of self-loathing. I think I may have since adolescence trained myself to assume particular facial expressions which I can tolerate when there's anything reflective in sight, so I never see myself making an unflattering facial expression in a mirror. Photographs reveal that all unstudied facial expressions are seriously unflattering.
On the weight thing in the post, I notice myself displacing other kinds of stress onto hating the way I look. I was feeling kind of sleek and attractive last winter and this spring. Work has gotten more stressful, I've been eating badly and not exercising much, and as a result I've gained less than five pounds and I think I'm a manatee. Obviously, this is nuts, so I try not to dwell on it.
[P]hotographs send me into spirals of self-loathing.
Comity. I cover my eyes and refuse to look at pictures that include me. For some reason, TWYRCL hates this.
Dudes body issues are somewhat different because no matter what you do you're not going to get any taller or have a bigger penis. (I guess the latter is actually false at some level of fatness. I wonder if dieting to increase penis length is a big thing.)
The only real comparable is muscleyness, and there are plenty of guys with body dysmorphia issues around that. But although there are plenty of people with big problems around that, the average guy is way less worried about muscleyness than the average woman is about weight.
9.last is silly. Manatees don't even lay eggs!
On the mirror/photo thing, I'm the opposite in that I think I look worse in photos than the mirror.
This goes for me as well. I wonder how common it is?
most people hate photos of themselves. my mom is amazingly beautiful irl but non-photogenic--that's why she could be a runway model but not a print model. I'm actually reasonably photogenic. but I'm talking about pictures of my whole body even from afar, my frame. how can I look so different there? I am seriously crazy. I mean, duh, but...
I actually kind of believe that being photogenic or the reverse is a real thing -- that there are people who in some objective (or at least apparent to a broad range of viewers) sense look worse in photographs than in person. There are people other than myself where I think that I've never seen a good picture of them (and people who seem better looking on film than in person.)
14: me too. But then I'm generally pretty sad about my appearance. Titanic but fragile ego, ahoy!
TWYRCL's friend who is a real model is tall, thin and pretty in real life but looks substantially more "model-y" after all the makeup, lighting and whatnot of photo shoots and television production. If I had to speculate, I'd hazard that the secret ingredient is contouring.*
* Not that I (i) know that that is or (ii) know that K/im K/ard/ash/ian does a Herculean amount of it. Pass the Coors! Silver Bullet! HGH! Ammunition! Ted Cruz! Drone strike the poor!
Isn't the mirror/photo thing a well-understood phenomenon? Everyone is slightly asymmetric, and people tend to look more at the right side of a person than at the left side? In a mirror, your right and left are reversed, so you're looking at your left side more than your right.
I definitely have various body dysmorphia things going on, although it seems not to the extent that many of my women friends talk about. Basically, my default is to think I'm too skinny and too fat. I'm much better about this than I used to be. For a good part of adolescence and even my early 20s I felt completely unattractive and weird about my body. Now Ii'm mostly okay with it, but it's funny how my feelings about my body change dramatically after like a week of exercise that I know can't have done any noticeable good. (My weight has stayed within a ten pound range, and in fact mostly a five pound range, since my mid-20s. It does get distributed somewhat differently if I'm good about exercise for like a year.)
Delicacy is such a brutal standard for women, because it's like height -- something you really can't change -- but it's so easily confused with overweight (which can in theory be changed, even if it's really hard). I was confusedly unhappy with my body when I was younger because I knew I was thin, in the 'low body fat' sense, but I was still a large, blocky person in terms of shoulders and ribcage, and I wasn't processing that the things I was unhappy about were literally unchangeable -- being thinner wouldn't make me any smaller. (This turned into inchoate dissatisfaction, rather than any kind of messed up eating or exercising, and wasn't all that intense. Just really irrational.)
Now Ii'm mostly okay with it, but it's funny how my feelings about my body change dramatically after like a week of exercise that I know can't have done any noticeable good.
I am always impressed by how fast guys put on visible muscle. Buck's an extreme case, because he's so skinny that an extra ounce of muscle anywhere shows up immediately, but we both started doing a lot of pushups this spring, and my goodness did he start looking different with his shirt off quickly. I've been zoning dreamily out across the breakfast table looking at him for a couple of months now.
Re: the mirror/photo thing, I wonder if it's mainly a matter of everyone having flattering/unflattering angles to be viewed from. Looking at yourself in a mirror, you can adjust to a more flattering angle, probably without thinking about it. Doing that for camera requires actual skill.
I look much better in the mirror, but that's probably because I know the best angle to view myself.
Sleeping in front of other people is something that some people can do, but I always found it slightly odd
It's something I do and I find it quite odd. Sitting a few feet from my boss in her office watching a webinar on her computer -- and I fall asleep.
25: How did that wind up in the wrong thread? I must have fallen asleep while I was posting it.
Maybe it would look better if I looked at in a mirror.
I am also someone who is not photogenic. I think I look alright when I see myself in the mirror, but in photos I think I look hideous.
I'm living somewhere where I'm considered supermodel level good-looking and "exotic," which I guess is ego-stroking on one level, but on another, it means I have paparazzi-like exposure and my unphotogenic-ness is shoved in my face all the time. Luckily I don't see most of the photos people take of me, but I have seen a few of the probably thousands of photos of me floating around social media and news sites, and many of them are (IMO) hideous.* After a few months of doing some slightly more formal modeling for my friend and her photography club, though, I have learned that you can train yourself to take better photos by learning how to pose and how to make slightly less stupid facial expressions, but I still don't find pictures of me to be nearly as good looking as I think I look in the mirror, and this is confirmed by other people as well. On the other hand, I read a study showing that people tend to think they're better looking than they actually are, so maybe it is true that photos are more accurate reflections of what we look like and our neurons are deceiving us when we look at our own reflections.
*People have different beauty standards here (duh, since I'm not a supermodel at home), and one friend who takes lots of photos of me will adjust the coloring in a way that makes my hair and teeth look darker. I don't have the whitest teeth to begin with, so after her darkening, they look basically stained or rotting. I've taken to smiling with my mouth closed when she's taking my picture.
I don't think I look bad in photographs, particularly. I just don't look like my image of me. In a mirror, sure, I'm graying and puffy and starting to wrinkle a bit but still recognizably a version of my young adult self. But then I look at recent pictures of myself, and think "Holy fuck, when did I start turning into my grandfather? Is my nose really that big? Do I always look insane when I smile?"
I don't notice any particular pattern with photos/mirror. That is, I think I look pretty good in some photos/mirror glances, while in others I look terrible. The conclusion I've drawn from this data: sometimes I look pretty good; sometimes I look terrible.
Do those blue eye drop things work? Somebody-on-the-internet was swearing by them as a necessity for people with light light blue eyes.
I notice myself displacing other kinds of stress onto hating the way I look.
This is totally what I do, even though I know it's stupid.
And apo, you don't always look insane when you smile, or not any more than at any other time.
Can I say how difficult it is to participate in a discussion of body image and not start burbling on about how smolderingly attractive everyone I've met in person is? No one's fishing for compliments here, that's not the point, and all that, but I find it really difficult to hear anyone express unhappiness on any level with their appearance without telling them they're devastating.
But I do agree that smiling has very little effect on Apo's level of apparent insanity.
I have the house dream too! There are...like you said, maybe 15? That's a lot. 10. The plot of the dream is that there is some whole new wing and I didn't know it was there, or a walk-in closet of incredible vintage clothes in my size, or a ghost but it turns out she is friendly, mostly. The main one is in Savannah on a spot where no square was ever built, though one was planned, which is where all my mom's Savannah house dreams take place (if not at my grandmother's, natch.)
YES. Hooray! Yes, wandering through extra wings. Extra attics and odd passageways that require athletics to maneuver. You have to swing from this rafter and land on that ledge to get to that crawl space, in order to get to the flight of stairs on the far said. Or big bright open passages with high ceilings. Or cement rooms.
heebie, I don't dream about houses anymore, but I did when I was a child. Most specific was a series of dreams where there were these sort of museum-quality rooms that were in either a ferris wheel or on a train, so you just went from room to room but could be there and it was amazing. They were my most comforting dreams, and I don't know that I have recurring comforting dreams anymore. I haven't gotten around to saying this in the other post because I haven't had time to do anything here lately, but it doesn't have the level of personal detail alameida's would have.
I can probably blame some of this on my (now Mara's) favorite childhood book, The Fourteen Bears in Summer and Winter, which shows each bear's house in charming detail.
I have an unrelated question: Is the recent spate of "resting bitch-face" jokes the natural outgrowth of women deciding they actually just don't feel like smiling for someone else's benefit? I think that's a large part of it.
33: Thank you for reassuring me that I'm not the only one who feels that way. It took a lot of effort to suppress the obvious but probably unhelpful response to 9.
I will limit myself to the general comment that pretty much everyone at UnfoggeDecadeCon who's described their appearance on-blog looked way better in person than their self-description suggested to me.
Mmmaybe? I mean, the joke is clearly that women are socially expected not to look sour, so if they do it's a medical condition, but I don't know if there are more unsmiling women out there than there ever were.
I have a half-baked theory that a man's body image tends to be better, generally speaking, not just because of greater pressure on women to diet and so forth, but because men's fashions are more forgiving and men are bigger, so it takes longer to notice. If I gain 10 pounds, none of my clothes fit. shiv recently announced his intention to start thinking about watching what he eats, because he's put on about 20 pounds since the Calabat was born , and his jeans are getting a little bit tight, and he refuses to go up a waist size.
40: I notice that my pants are too tight if I gain 5 pounds (like I just did on vacation). But I wouldn't have until a couple of years ago when I started to wear better fitting clothes.
39 to 37, and to 38, yeah, I was trying to let anyone else having the same reaction to this thread that I'm having off the hook.
but I was still a large, blocky person in terms of shoulders and ribcage,
Oh god this is my Achilles heel. I generally feel like I look like a linebacker.
At the moment, I've been exercising enough to feel good about myself, and avoiding seeing myself in photos.
Also, I have a theory that Crossfit is Jazzercise for people who love sports.
Some of the `bitch-face' talk seems to be pre-empting complaints about one's not smiling. Good, on balance. Maybe with familiarity we'll be able to recognize the middle ground, in female frontage, between supplication and bitchery.
My face has a lot of gooney middle ground -- even my mother and the Dwarf Lord admit that photos of me are funny-looking. Personally, I suspect I'm always making funny-looking faces and they're just fond and doting, but that's all right. (Have always had a pleasantly homely face and much better body. This is tactically terrible for dating strangers, but well set up for being a lady at the table and a tigress in the bedroom, so.)
I have also had house dreams! Always that I could keep going up or in and it became more complicated and teetering and lonely and beautiful. Haven't had them for a while, though.
43.last: Ugh, I hate sports. Maybe I shouldn't try CrossFit after all...
I generally feel like I look like a linebacker.
Do you think you could tackle me in the open field?
(God, I am so ready for football season to start)
the recent spate of "resting bitch-face" jokes the
The what now?
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Past a certain point, humble acknowledgment of one's own limitations shades into self-satisfied incompetence.
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Seems on-topic, Minivet! What's the other story?
44: I do think that some of it actually is variation in how people's faces are shaped. Certain kinds of pronounced big dark super-expressive eyebrows can aggravate the misimpression of what is in fact a resting neutral expression as the expression of deeply felt scorn.
I made this mistake a couple of times before RBF was a common expression, but only with women with that kind of eyebrow. Since most of those women actually did have good reasons to think they were better than me (or at least I thought so at the time), it took me a while to realize that no, that was just how their neutral expression, they haven't yet seen into my soul and figured out that I'm a despicable person. Kind of a disappointment, actually.
*that was just how their neutral expression
(God, I am so ready for football season to start)
Tried to watch a preseason game last night - a pallid imitation of the real thing.
47: Sally's first fall rugby practice is today, allowing her to shift from (hopefully nonexistent) concerns about her body-image esthetically to concerns about her body as sufficient to protect her from being trampled.
Certain kinds of pronounced big dark super-expressive eyebrows can aggravate the misimpression of what is in fact a resting neutral expression as the expression of deeply felt scorn.
Hi!
I've been told that whenever I'm not grinning, I look angry.
And in general, if you're used to a certain sort of face as a baseline, then the first few times you see someone with a different face shape (more if you're not very quick about this sort of thing) you will interpret its difference from the relevant baseline as an active expression. So there are "curious," "confused," "sad," "happy" resting faces, but only for people who aren't used to people with that kind of face. Once you get used to it, you only see the deviation from that face's resting position.
I have been having some of this weird body dysmorphia over the past year or two, since quitting smoking and leaving NYC (stairs all the time every day!). I eat healthier, but should be more proactive about exercise to balance the sedentary rural lifestyle. But I look fine in clothes, and have spent a lot of effort on not being grossed out by seeing images of myself. (Like many, I look fine to myself in a mirror.) I think the harder part than being a little fatter is being a little older. I thought I would look more elegant as I age, but instead I feel like my face has just gotten more asymmetrical, my expression more ironic and hard. I occasionally practice the openhearted girl face in cameraphone selfies to see if I can do it, but I don't think my face will do that anymore.
Next time I have a student asking whether to go for a Ph.D., I'll just send this comment.
55: I must be used to your face type then, since I didn't get that impression at all. (Either that, or you were subtly grinning the whole time at UnfoggeDecadeCon and I misinterpreted it as a neutral expression.)
Extra attics and odd passageways that require athletics to maneuver. You have to swing from this rafter and land on that ledge to get to that crawl space, in order to get to the flight of stairs on the far side
Apparently the cake is a lie.
I was grinning fairly frequently at Unfoggetywhatever, admittedly. It was that kind of party.
Either that, or you were subtly grinning drunk the whole time at UnfoggeDecadeCon
On the mirror/photo thing, I'm the opposite in that I think I look worse in photos than the mirror.
Me tooooo. The only photos I can ever stand of myself, generally, are ones I take myself. And it seems quite obvious to me in my case that the non-selfie photo is more accurate, revealing what I go around looking like to people ALL THE TIME, all unknowing. How humiliating. :(
I am always impressed by how fast guys put on visible muscle.
Thank god for that speed, because I'm about four weeks post surgery and the arm is totally all shrunken and atrophied from being immobilized in the splint and now the brace. My daughters think it's hilarious. Knowing it'll come back quick helps. Stupid body.
But it sounds as if everything turned out well at least. How do you fix an arm tendon -- are you part zombie or part cyborg now?
I have to admit that I can't stand how I look in the mirror, to the point where I avoid looking in mirrors at the barber and shave facing away from the mirror in the bathroom, but think I look really pretty good in photos. (ObJohnCusack: "You're a handsome devil. What's your name?") I think it's a static/moving image thing because I hate watching myself on video as well.
55: It's possible someone was negging you to get you into bed.
One of the things that really helps my self-esteem is not being critical of other people's bodies. Or maybe the causality arrow goes the other way. But I like having sex with many kinds of bodies--fat, thin, medium, muscly, soft--and privately think other people should figure out how to do that, too. An ex-gf of mine is this gigantic Amazon--all tits and ass and big soft thighs--and having sex with her was completely and utterly delightful and thrilling. It's not a body type I generally go for, and certainly don't fetishize, but I know a sexy person when I see one. But I have also loved having sex with rail-thin dudes. It's all good.
So I think it's easier for me not to get in a twist about my current shape. I'd fuck me. And most of the people I know who talk obsessively about needing a partner who is exactly this shape with precisely these features--those are the hardest on themselves, really obsessive about the gym to the point that I have accused one of them of having an insect fetish, as he seems to be struggling to create a torso resembling a hard beetle carapace. They can't enjoy sex because they're so worried that they might accidentally catch a glimpse of themselves or their partners in a slightly unflattering position and lose all interest. It sounds really difficult to me.
I hate near selfies, since my face looks horribly asymmetrical.
I think I'm okay shapewise in the mirror, though harsh bathroom lighting still makes me look bad up close.
I used to hate myself in photos, but I've been working a lot on my posture, and now I think I look sort of okay on occasion, though sometimes it looks like my friends are posing with a cardboard cutout of me.
Also yes on the aging. I feel like my features are drifting up my face, compared to the adorable children whose features are all crammed down near their chins.
Bleh, I dunno, this thread comes at a fairly goddamn dysmorphic time for me and makes me irritable. I weighed the same thing from 18 to 30 and then my metabolism started slowing up seriously and I look quite different now and it bothers me. Not all the time! Only when I think about it!
Around 34-35 I went on one particular internet date with a very fit guy who was not interested in me and rightly or wrongly decided not being skinny anymore was affecting how people reacted to me and for three months came home every night and put yogurt and fruit in the blender and that was dinner. I lost 15 pounds. They came back and brought friends. A year ago I did weight watchers and lost I think 20 and then stopped and hi again, pounds!
I have no real concept of how I look anymore. I feel bigger than I would like to be, and my shirts don't fit, and it stresses me out. Friends say I don't look that different, but 1) they're friends and 2) they don't see me with my shirt off because 1). I guess we'll see what happens when I'm not stress eating 100% of the time. But yes, plenty of dudes give that much of a shit.
One of the things that really helps my self-esteem is not being critical of other people's bodies.
Seconded! Don't know about sex, but can attest that all shapes can be delightful to dance with.
48: it's a humorous internet video, I guess a lot of people are making references to it? The idea that "bitchy resting face" is a syndrome in which women's default facial expression appears to be unhappy.
You have to swing from this rafter and land on that ledge to get to that crawl space, in order to get to the flight of stairs on the far side
Dude, I've totally dreamed I was in this building. Was there light coming in from a large window off to the side?
Mostly I feel like my body is really pale, because I'm at the beach (near Savannah). I'll certainly overweight, but thinner than most men my age here.
68 is reassuring and I might read it over and over. Some of it is just not wanting to look like my dad quite yet.
How do you fix an arm tendon -- are you part zombie or part cyborg now?
A touch of cyborg. The surgeon uses sutures to attach an oval titanium button to the tendon and then drills a hole in the radius. When the button is drawn through the hole and inverted it keeps the tendon end down in that hole so it can heal up re-attached. Illustration and an example x-ray here and here.
Neat. Robocop.
When do you get the full helmet installed?
gswift, I'm not going to think about 77 in too much detail, but I'm glad you're around. I'd been wondering how your recovery was going.
48: it's a humorous internet video, I guess a lot of people are making references to it?
Huh. This one completely passed me by, which is inconceivable as I am aware of all internet traditions. The only female face related internet video meme that springs to mind for me is "Grace face".
Also, is it actually humorous in that I should watch it?
50: Huh, I was venting during a meeting; not the greatest context in retrospect. It was about someone I work with, but not a cow-orker.
43: For me it's thin legs. Women are "supposed" to have slender thighs, and I am pretty sure this just is not in my body type at all.
We can rebuild him. We have the technology.
Robocop
That's what my girls have been calling me, the little dweebs.
I'm not going to think about 77 in too much detail
You don't need imagination, there's Youtube of the surgery (not mine). Definitely takes the mystery out of that scrip for Percocets. We went on our Yellowstone trip four days after my surgery and my wife had to do all the driving because I was high all the time.
Couple years back I was traveling with a friend who was super particular about pictures. He had absolutely no interest in all of our posed ones, but then picked out a super excellent picture where we weren't posed and had open faces. On that same trip, I was watching a guy take pictures of his fiancee, and any time the lens went towards her, a mask came over her face. He must have hundreds of pictures of it.
That was enough to make me dislike camera-face. But most unposed shots are awful! Now I don't like camera-face or almost all non-camera-face pictures. I believe the solution must be volume, with someone taking very many pictures and only selecting the very few flattering candids. My boyfriend has good taste in that, but not that much interest in endlessly taking pictures, so now there aren't many pictures of me that I like.
You're clearly raising them right.
87 to 85.
86: There's skill in there. I've talked about how the only pictures of me that look like I think I look are ones a professional photographer friend took. He wasn't picking a couple of good ones out of a million shots, he was doing something right in setting up the shots.
...The cheap solution must be volume...
I'm pretty sure one of the problems with body dysmorphia is that we buy cheaper and cheaper clothes, and the cheapest way to make clothes is as plain cylinders, and cylinders only fit a particular kind of skinny people. This keeps going downhill, too: lots of ruching and high-low hems disguise stresses and unevenness that `plain' clothes show with bad fit.
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There's a crew topping or felling a tree in a backyard near me, and their conversations make it so evident that I don't do *real* work. A, they're in the full sunlight when I have an iceblock under my laptop to keep it healthy; B, lengthy conversations about how to rig and section so that nothing falls into the wires they're surrounded by.
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I'm sort of joining a lab run by another faculty member, and she's recently informed me that for the new website for the new multi-member lab she's going to want to take photos of everyone in some uniform location, instead of using existing photos. Yay, more opportunities to generate and be forced to share with the world new photos of myself I don't like! I especially like how this sort of thing makes me feel both bad because I don't like how I look and bad because I wish I were less vain. Yippee.
this sort of thing makes me feel both bad because I don't like how I look and bad because I wish I were less vain.
Right. I feel bad about being chunky and then I feel bad about being fat-phobic. Winning in so many directions.
90: I keep on waiting for when mass-produced tailoring really hits -- you go get professionally measured somewhere, and then order clothes either made to measure, or produced in a much broader range of sizes than can be stocked in a brick-and-mortar store. But I thought that was happening five years ago and it didn't.
I wish I were less vain.
I bet you think this blog is about you.
91, 92: Yep. I also feel bad about transmitting unhealthy body issues to my kids, to the extent I do, or allowing anyone else to do so.
and the cheapest way to make clothes is as plain cylinders, and cylinders only fit a particular kind of skinny people.
While I think this is basically correct, I'm actually quite cylindrical and also manage to be dysmorphic. The key is a large radius!
90.1: Is this more a problem for women than men, getting at how much weight gain/loss requires new clothes? I have a hard time finding clothes that fit the way I want them to, but that's a combination of vanity, cheapness, and just general muddled feelings about what I want to project to the world, I guess.
Whenever I see the terrible quality of affordable, newly made clothing, I am tempted again to price out individually tailored Mao suits. I want mine in raw silk though, so it probably would still be insanely expensive.
90: I keep on waiting for when mass-produced tailoring really hits -- you go get professionally measured somewhere, and then order clothes either made to measure, or produced in a much broader range of sizes than can be stocked in a brick-and-mortar store. But I thought that was happening five years ago and it didn't.
I think it's hard to convince people to do this, because almost nobody has any experience with tailoring, so there isn't a perception of what's better about it. I don't know what could make me sit up and say "You know what? All the clothes that have ever been on my body have been inadequate. It's time to try something new." Mass market advertising, probably.
96: If your radius is much longer than your ulna, your sleeves will never look right.
90: I keep on waiting for when mass-produced tailoring really hits -- you go get professionally measured somewhere, and then order clothes either made to measure, or produced in a much broader range of sizes than can be stocked in a brick-and-mortar store. But I thought that was happening five years ago and it didn't.
This was a thing on Dragon's Den (Shark Tank for Americans). The idea was you'd go to the clothes shop and step into what amounted to a 3D scanner like they have for facial capture in CGI. It would take your measurements and then you'd get sent the fitted clothes in the mail (or pick them up). It didn't get funded because it wasn't going to be any cheaper than hiring a person to take measurements.
Postscript: Oh wow, the clip is actually available here for iPlayer enabled people.
That only applies to casually dressed men, I think, who are expected to wear loosely fitting unstructured clothes. Most women and any fashiony men would see the appeal of clothes that fit better immediately.
I think it's hard to convince people to do this, because almost nobody has any experience with tailoring, so there isn't a perception of what's better about it.
Eh, I think it's hard because it's really expensive. The number of measurements you'd have to take to get a suit jacket that fit me really well is sort of insane.
One positive way of thinking of bad pictures of yourself is that when people see you IRL they always think you look surprisingly hot. This is a strategy I recommend for online dating, passport photos, professional websites, etc. I am always cuter than I look in photos.
The thing is, beautifully tailored clothes make it look as though the wearer is better-looking, not as though the clothes are doing it, so they're really hard to sell. There is a Kickstarter -- successful, I think -- for a truck with a scanner & associated cutters for men's shirts and suits. That just perfects the detailed measurements that men's tailoring has already worked out. (At least, I don't think they automate the cutting.)
A decade ago, one of the big jeans cos. did professional measuring and custom jeans, and the first three were the best jeans I've ever had. Reasonably popular program, IIRC. But then styles changed and, as far as I can tell, no-one updated the measurements-to-cutting map, so the next pair of jeans had actual little *corners* in the side seams. Program fell apart immediately.
Lots of people are working on this, although the news is always for very fancy wierd space-age clothes (which can hide a lot of bad fit in the fanciness). Sewing magazines (basically, _Threads_) every couple of years refer to the this-is-how-you-fit-your-T-shirt article, which shows how much better you look with nothing pulling or sagging.
Uh, sorry. I have been following this long enough that it just *kills* me it hasn't taken off. Inexplicable inefficiencies are all over -- the hardware potential and software recalcitrance of embroidery machines is a (small) FOSS watchword. FOSS alternatives then discover how difficult working with non-rigid, non-isotropic, continuity-requiring materials is. Fun for all!
Like, the handsome slutty guy I'm making friends with here did a whole speech about how ugly he is in his passport photo, and I'm like, when does anyone see that without seeing your real-life adorable face? Never! And the contrast makes you even hotter!
Perhaps the fear is that the ugly photo is the "real" you and that you're kidding yourself about how cute you are? Pshaw. No one changes their opinion of your real-life cuteness because they see an unflattering photo of you. And even if they momentarily do, a glimpse of your twinkling eyes sets them right.
Maybe 10 years ago, I happened to be at a shopping mall on a day when they had you stand in a box that would give you your measurements and tell you what size you'd wear in various stores. And my sizes ranged from 4-14, sometimes within the same stores. I basically already knew that it's a fool's errand to find clothes that fit, but that really rubbed it in. (Knitting for myself for all these years has had a big impact too. I really need to learn to use a sewing machine, because I've sewn a shirt and a skirt by hand but I need to be realistic that I'm not good enough to do that forever.)
Maybe 10 years ago, I happened to be at a shopping mall on a day when they had you stand in a box that would give you your measurements and tell you what size you'd wear in various stores. And my sizes ranged from 4-14, sometimes within the same stores. I basically already knew that it's a fool's errand to find clothes that fit, but that really rubbed it in. (Knitting for myself for all these years has had a big impact too. I really need to learn to use a sewing machine, because I've sewn a shirt and a skirt by hand but I need to be realistic that I'm not good enough to do that forever.)
Like it says at GY's link, the measuring isn't so much the issue -- you can have a laser scanny device or a guy with a measuring tape. What I was thinking of is more of a production/marketing/shipping issue -- that someone would start either making and selling clothes in a much, much broader range of sizes, so you could send in a spreadsheet of your actual measurements and order mass-produced clothes that fit, or that they'd produce made-to-measure garments in some automated kind of way.
91/104, a lab I work closely with uses a professional photographer to take individual photos; however, this person feels like she should Photoshop away their "imperfections." My closest collaborator is a 55 year old man who is almost entirely bald, yet his photo has dark hair covering his head! (I suspect his original hair was reddish brown before it turned grey.) One poor woman, who is quite petite but large-breasted, had her breasts reduced and her hips "enhanced" so she was more proportional. I would link, but they've been updated to less outrageous group versions.
Pshaw. No one changes their opinion of your real-life cuteness because they see an unflattering photo of you.
The worry is that my actual level of real-life cuteness is accurately captured by the terrible photos.
re: 6.last
Yeah, I have a sort of reverse dysmorphia that way. I mean I don't think I look great, but in the mirror I think I look sort of podgy and overweight, but basically like me. If I look at photos the person I see if much heavier, and looks a lot less like me. IYSWIM.
110: insane.
Think of all the scanning at airports! They should be able to issue us custom-fit disposable pajamas for the flight, or have properly sewn clothes waiting at our destination.
Perhaps the fear is that the ugly photo is the "real" you and that you're kidding yourself about how cute you are?
My favorite line from Seinfeld. "Is it possible I'm not as attractive as I think I am?" says Elaine. It is perhaps more about context and delivery, as it doesn't look all that funny now that I've typed it.
111: Eh. Animation and grace are huge parts of real-life cuteness. Pictures don't show those no matter what, because they don't move.
Think of all the scanning at airports! They should be able to issue us custom-fit disposable pajamas for the flight, or have properly sewn clothes waiting at our destination.
Say what you will about living conditions at Guantanamo, but those orange jumpsuits fit perfectly.
I really do think that fitness is the only *realistic* solution to these kinds of problems. If you can view your body as a project to be worked on for purposes of making it healthier and for you to feel better, rather than an immutably attractive or unattractive shell that's tied mainly to its external presentation, it's hard to be affirmatively body dysmorphic; you're tied to your potential and actual work, not your failure to inherently meet some external standard. I'm skeptical that it's possible to just waive away being judgmental about one's own body or the bodies of other people; it seems like a pretty basic human quality to think about our own body and the attractiveness of other peoples' bodies.
Anyhow, I have the same fears as 111 and 112. Sometimes you get a photo that makes you look unrealistically attractive, though, which is nice.
My favorite line from Seinfeld. "Is it possible I'm not as attractive as I think I am?" says Elaine.
My favorite line from Seinfeld is when George sings along with his own out-going message, to the tune of Greatest American Hero, "Believe it or not, George isn't at home..."
I really do think that fitness is the only *realistic* solution to these kinds of problems. If you can view your body as a project to be worked on for purposes of making it healthier and for you to feel better, rather than an immutably attractive or unattractive shell that's tied mainly to its external presentation, it's hard to be affirmatively body dysmorphic
You'd be surprised! This gets back to what LB is saying in 21. One can really eat one's heart out over immutable aspects of your body.
I really do think that fitness is the only *realistic* solution to these kinds of problems.
May I introduce you to my chin? Do you have exercises for it?
I guess I'm saying is that focusing on fitness can help change one's focus from the immutable to the mutable. I'm definitely not saying that you can fitness your way into changing whatever immutable characteristic (chin, basic body type, whatever) you want to change, just that it's a way of making those characteristics much less psychologically important -- and maybe a more realistic way of doing so than just trying to be nonjudgmental about appearance and then berating oneself for actually being judgmental. That's my thesis anyway.
116.2: I hear it's the new black.
117: That worked for me until middle age. Now I'm conscious that I will be getting worse at getting better for the rest of my span. I suppose this is preferable to dysmorphia.
117 is advice I thought was good, and then I had a baby, and now I can't do half the things I used to do*, and so now I feel weak and unattractive.
*I'm fine, just impatient.
The downside of my annual Summer Orgy of Carbs system is that pictures start appearing on the internet with me not wearing much. Not enough of a downside to avoid it, though: people can just hit delete if the sight of an underdressed fat old guy is too disturbing.
Mirrors work better for me than photos because (a) I don't spend any time looking at the gut and (b) I smile at myself.
and then I had a baby, and now I can't do half the things I used to do*
Probably no one wants me to record an "It Never Gets Better" video.
126: Yeah, let's not even talk about how bad we'd all look on video!
126: On the contrary, I think that would be cu-- uh, fashionable.
That worked for me until middle age. Now I'm conscious that I will be getting worse at getting better for the rest of my span.
Ouch. Between this and your comment a couple of weeks ago about nobody wanting to hire programmers over 35 you've managed to precisely target random fears and insecurities of mine.
In this case, the quoted comment is precisely what worries me about entering my late-30s -- have I mentioned that my birthday is coming up?
I will just mention that giving up on ever again dating men boosted my sense of my own attractiveness immensely, such that I went from hating and obsessing over my appearance to being a bit vain. Everything that's good about my appearance renders me unattractive to men - I have wide shoulders and look good with men's-style-blogger retro short hair cuts and have not much by way of hips and wear distinctive glasses. Everything that's bleh about my appearance - kind of fat, have accompanying cellulite, have dark hair and pale skin so that leg hair is very apparent - seems to be non-dealbreakers for queer women. Plus, I don't have to be deferential and admiring any more but instead can show off and make stupid jokes, both of which are much more congenial to my personality. Plus, I can wear pants and button front shirts, which suit me, instead of needing to do myself up in dresses and ruffles and look like a badly wrapped package.
Going from the country of "I am the ugliest person in any given room and must never display any romantic interest in anyone lest they flee in horror" to "actually I'm pretty good looking and fairly charming as long as you don't mind fatter people" has been a real trip. You people who grew up good looking do not know how spoiled you are.
Not that they're unusual fears, NickS. Also, writing my diss is making me a distracted unproductive whiner, and I'm not doing anything to make our government less awful.
OTOH, I find cooking & monogamy & making friends remains possible & rewarding, so the decline will have its comforts.
Frowner, I have a penguin-shaped friend who made a similar decision and now goes out in men's formal wear and dayum. She says everything has been smooth sailing except the sporran, which some men get very proprietary over. Labia envy, perhaps.
"Dayum" is completely lost on me and the internet says it's the way you spell "damn" in hip hop.
Not that they're unusual fears, NickS.
Quite true.
You people who grew up good looking do not know how spoiled you are.
I think about this occasionally (I don't know that I'd claim to be, "good looking", but I'm at least average). I more or less never attempt to look good, or try to impress anybody, but I'm still aware that I benefit. As somebody with a strong tendency towards introversion and living inside my own head, I suspect that if I felt unattractive as well that it would be very easy to end up feeling awfully isolated. It would be be another reason to feel anxious about social interactions, and that wouldn't be an improvement.
Exactly, Moby. One regards her sleekit shape and sparkling eye and says: dayum.
135: I thought it was a type of clothing.
137 gets it right. "Dayum" could easily be on the list of fabrics with "Fustian" and "Poplin" and "Cambric".
Selvedge dayum waistcoats are all the rage at Pitti Uomo this year. #menswear
Hurray for Frowner! Somebody feels better about the way they look!
Frowner, your self-description sounds like the sort of person I'd stare at admiringly/appreciatively while shopping or waiting in line, then realize I was staring, then stare at my feet so I wasn't creepy. So, um, sorry about that.
One poor woman, who is quite petite but large-breasted
She must be quite distraught. Does she need comforting?
I've put on weight this year and am now dieting ... I didn't really notice it looking at myself but I could *feel* it round my middle when I moved (I think nearly all of it is round my waist) and then I saw some photos and realised how solid I was looking. My girls know I'm dieting, which makes me feel uneasy, but I told them it's just practical because I can't afford to buy a load of clothes the next size up.
I look okay in the mirror, but like a gargoyle in photos... really awful. Also, messing around with the color settings on my digital camera has some fun effects: "vivid" color makes me look like I've had too much to drink, "neutral" makes me look ashen, and "grayscale" makes me look like I've been dead for some time.
I think I dislike hearing recordings of my voice more than I dislike photos of myself. What I really don't like is how aware I am of my gut when I sit and read.
140: Is it bad form to say I do too? Divorce seems to have agreed with me immensely.
Re: accuracy of photos, recently a friend noticed a photo on my fridge of my sister and her then-fiancé. He said something like, "Gosh, that's an unfortunate photo," and was embarrassed to learn (since I wasn't sure what he meant - I assumed he meant the pose) that it was an entirely accurate likeness. Now, I believe the worst of all my photos.
It's true then that you still overeat, fat friend,
and swell, and never take folks' advice. They laugh,
you just giggle and pay no attention. Damn!
You don't care, not you!
But once—that was before time had blunted your
desire for pretty frocks—slender girl—or is
the print cunningly faked?—arm in arm with your
fiancé you stood,
and glared into the lens (slightly out of focus)
while that public eye scrutinised your shape,
afraid, the attitude shows, you might somehow
excite its dislike.
Another little meditation I do when I see an ugly photo of myself is to say, "Well, it's a good thing I'm a fucking genius!" or "fantastic lay!" or "deeply thoughtful!" or whatever personal quality I am invested in that day.
You're smart enough, you're thoughtful enough, and goddamn it, people fuck you.
I was a moderately beefy teenager, and this fixed my body image permanently. For most of my early 20s I was 5'4" and less than 110 pounds, and I never went out without layers, baggy pants, big jackets. (There would be like 7 days a year when I would chill out and wear a tank top. I've found XL sweaters in my closet.) It has occurred to me now that I live in a more superficial style-conscious place, and am no longer youthful, that I could have taken a few more liberties than I did.
I suspect that the 7% of my body weight that was post-baby gain would disappear if I exercised at all, ever. I've always been far better at eating very little than activity as weight management. I can see one grim middle-age scenario where I eat about 700 calories a day and occasionally daintily lift a 10-pound weight, and then am too decrepit to move by the time I'm 65.
There are a lot of photos of me about which other people say: "Look how cute you are in this one!" and I think I look like Don Knotts with a wig. This is one of the reasons I couldn't deal with Facebook: it collected that shit in a big collage.
I really, really hope that I am not photogenic, but what if I do look like my photos? It's way too late to cultivate a nice personality.
I like myself fine in the mirror, even better when a dark window on a train reflects my face back. I don't like myself in photos. Some of this is because I look washed out, but it's also the case that my high brow is more pronounced in the photos.
151.3: And just what are you implying?
What I'm saying is I can kick your ass, Knotts.
153 made me laugh. That is pretty much exactly how I feel.
Sometimes I see a reflection of myself in glass or … some other reflective surface, and I think, hey, I look pretty good. Go me.
I was feeling sheepish about having spent so much time gripping about my weight/appearance to my therapist yesterday, but at least I'm not alone. She suspects that i will start feeling better about myself once I find jeans that aren't designed for teenagers. I am dubious.
These sorts of threads are much weirder to me now that I actually know what people look like. When you don't know what someone looks like and they talk about their appearance you're looking through their own eyes, but once you know what they look like it's very hard to get back into that perspective and not just think of what they look like to me.
I also laughed out loud at 150. And I looked really hot doing it.
You have to swing from this rafter and land on that ledge to get to that crawl space, in order to get to the flight of stairs on the far said.
Wait what I've had this dream too what the hell?
I really, really hope that I am not photogenic, but what if I do look like my photos? It's way too late to cultivate a nice personality.
This is my fear too.
On another issue, I think I have pretty good self esteem & stuff when it comes to my body. One thing though, is that while I think I'm good looking, I don't expect that anyone else does, nor do other people's opinions affect mine all that much (except for the person I'm dating). So, if someone were to say, "I think you're really ugly." I would be momentarily taken aback, but then I'd just kind of think, "oh well, that's your opinion, I think I look fine." I feel like people I know who think they look hot assume that's a universally held opinion, and people who don't think other people find them hot also tend to not find themselves hot. But, maybe my attitude is more common than I think?
163 was me.
Oh, I think, one of the reasons I have good self esteem is I was by and large raised by crunchy people in the PNW. In addition to the general lack of emphasis on appearance, I also grew up learning nothing about the arts of beautification. This meant that I assumed that everyone I saw 'naturally' looked the way they did, and if someone was much more beautiful than me, it was just something to come to terms with, rather than realizing I could also look like that person if I was willing to put effort into grooming. It also helps that the things I am truly unhappy or self-conscious about (I have proportionately short arms for my body, and I gain weight easily in my upper arms), are things that aren't easy to alter through diet or exercise or even plastic surgery. I could see, if you hated your breasts, that breast surgery could become tempting after decades of loathing, but I'm pretty sure arm lengthening surgery isn't an option even if I wanted it. If I could press a button and immediately add an 1.5-2 inches onto my arms and about 3/4 inch onto my legs, I would, but since I can't, I just have to accept I have short arms and not super long legs. (My legs aren't disproportionately short, but they're on the shorter side of proportionate.)
essear: big clerestory-in-a-factory windows, with massive light coming in in shafts from the left, nu? Must be...3pm in the Northern Hemisphere in summer. Or four.
These sorts of threads are much weirder to me now that I actually know what people look like. When you don't know what someone looks like and they talk about their appearance you're looking through their own eyes . . .
On the other hand, I was just thinking that I probably wouldn't have posted 134 last before meeting people in person (and having my photo in the flickr pool). It would have felt odd, somehow, to mention my appearance in a context in which it would only be through my eyes (as you aptly put it).
jackmormon: the blue eyedrops are AWESOME. only, if you wear corrective contact lenses, they tend to make the outer edge of the lens slightly visible when viewed from very close. but, like, you're probably already making out now so what the fuck, close. everyone's sclera yellow as they age, and babies have disturbingly blue-white marbles, free from veins. thus the eyedrops, which serve the same function as 'bluing' in the old ladies hair dye of yore (and, I imagine, today) which was meant to pull their gray hair out of yellow-toned and into silver.
This dream about swinging from rafters sounds like a video game.
This dream about swinging from rafters sounds like a video game
As ajay alluded to. Though I think a Prince of Persia reference might have been more appropriate.
I'm pretty sure arm lengthening surgery isn't an option even if I wanted it. If I could press a button and immediately add an 1.5-2 inches onto my arms and about 3/4 inch onto my legs, I would, but since I can't, I just have to accept I have short arms and not super long legs.
Leg lengthening surgery is definitely a thing (distraction osteogenesis). Mostly it's done for medical reasons, when a limb hasn't fully developed for some reason, but it's done cosmetically as well. ISTR particularly popular in China.
Right. I feel bad about being chunky and then I feel bad about being fat-phobic.
Yeah, I got the same thing going, though I'm well past "chunky" at this point in time.
the trifecta of feeling bad about your body; feeling bad about feeling bad since it's clearly disordered and problematic; and then feeling guilty for providing your children with a bad example to follow is lame.
170
True, but apparently it's excruciatingly painful, expensive, can take up to two years, and may permanently debilitate your legs. Not exactly something I'd consider undergoing for anything but dire medical reasons.
162: I've had that dream periodically throughout my life, often focusing either on the architecture of the church I went to as a kid, or my first elementary school (which did have some semi-open staircases, lending itself to that sort of scenario). There is a stairway up from the railroad tracks to an overpass in Omaha where several stairs were missing when I lived there. That was kinda freaky. It was a very tall staircase ~80 feet or so.
The other day I was waiting for the bus and got into a conversation with an older (55 or so) woman. I mentioned my age and she indicated that I looked quite old for my age. Which is weird, since I feel like, save for losing a bunch of hair and having a bit of grey in the remainder, I don't look that much different than when I was 20 or so. Not that I like how I look, but I think a lot of people would be hard-pressed to accurately date photos of me as an adult without tells such as changing fashions in clothing and glasses.
169 - oops, I missed ajay. But yeah, I was thinking Prince of Persia too.
172 is very true. I'm doing okay so far in not passing along dysmorphia, though it probably helps that neither girl gets her body from me. I realized recently that Nia has gone from being obsessed with being "cute" and asking us all the time how cute she looked to talking with Mara all the time about which is stronger while they show off their biceps. Come Halfordismo, maybe they can be the god-king's daughter's bodyguards.
The other day I was waiting for the bus and got into a conversation with an older (55 or so) woman. I mentioned my age and she indicated that I looked quite old for my age.
How charming. I hope you stole her handbag.
older (55 or so) woman. I mentioned my age and she indicated that I looked quite old for my age.
She was probably just insinuating that she'd totally hit it.
Belated dysmorphia addition, I was changing a t-shirt the other week in the supermarket for a larger size, and the woman behind the customer service desk said, 'I hope you don't mind me saying, but you really don't look like you're that size.'* Which was sort of nice. She was also right, as it turned out, size N was too small, and size N+1 was massive.
* she clarified she meant, she'd assume I was at least one, or possibly two sizes smaller.
As long as I'm comment-bombing a bunch of different threads, I'll note here that, perhaps surprisingly, I basically never have architectural dreams. Probably the built environment in my dreams is more specific and detailed than in the average dreamer's dreams, but what H-G and alameida describe pretty much never happens to me.
I did recently have a rather on-the-nose stress dream where a contractor was totally screwing up a project and it was reflecting badly on me, but that was atypical, and not especially architectonic.
Also, to the OP, I think AB would be happy to eat the identical salad every night for a year. She'd want variety in other eating, but she gets happy about a side salad like it was some rare treat*. She almost literally never had a salad growing up, so apparently this is just all making up for lost time.
*like, just a basic mixed greens with misc. chopped veg happens probably twice a week around here, and if happens 3 times, she's excited like it's been a month
The dysmorphia thread is probably the right place to note that my dentist showed up at my Crossfit and mansplained to me that I might try using the smaller, 15 lb bar instead of the 45 lb bar. Now that I've written it out, it seems like a boring dream but it was actually a boring true reality.
My dentist retired and the new one has a hygienist who doesn't hate his very existence. Not as fun.
Also, if it wasn't for health concerns, I would eat chicken tenders and fries every night.
Was your old dentist the one who fired his hygienist because he lusted after her?
He didn't seem to like her in the least.
It's hard to beat a salad of greens, chopped veg, some crunchy nut, a little feta, and a dressing of lime juice, olive oil, garlic and (enough!!) salt. I don't know why that particular simple dressing is so wonderful but now that I've found it I find I never want another.
One thing that beats the salad in 190 hands down is the same thing without feta.
I mostly follow the regular pattern here, such that; see self clothed in the mirror - up at the heavy end of my lifetime range but could be worse, see photos of self taken by others - good god I am a whale! how many chins!, see self unclothed in mirror - oh jesus I wouldn't fancy that so how could I let anyone else see it?
Just in the last 6 weeks I am capable at long last of doing more physical activity for sport and health purposes which by improving my posture flatters my apparent weight. Also because I am in better humour I have just started doing something to actually lose spare tyres - I am not weighing myself at all but will just go by fit of lclothes and won't be obsessing about my smallest sized stuff either.
On a completely different note, AWB's descriptions of Rural Seventh Grade made me think that there is occasionally something to be said for the traditional British/Irish method of "get completely drunk, fall into bed, if repeated a few times, hey presto, you're going out".
196.last: this topic has come up before, but at that point AWB was living in New York and running up against a completely different sort of inexplicable dating weirdness. http://www.unfogged.com/archives/comments_11301.html
(that was the "You'll do" thread)
traditional British/Irish method of "get completely drunk, fall into bed, if repeated a few times, hey presto, you're going out".
Worked for me, 33 years ago.
Somewhere people start relationships while sober?
Yup, me too. I don't think I've ever really been on a date. My previous ex g/friend and I went on a few dates, I suppose, early on, but we'd already passed the drunken snogging stage before we ever went out.
199. Wherever there are devout Muslims or Mormons, presumably.
AWB's stories just don't sound that strange from a US perspective, or at least, not that strange from what I remember of dating, many years ago.
(This attack of gloom about US gender relations brought on by dealing with a "client" under time-sensitive circumstances where the options I managed to figure out were to be sweetly deferential (in so far as I can manage it) and let him fuck up the case a certain extent, or tear him a new one and have him fuck it up all the way. So I deferred. With more time, I think I could have gently held my ground and kept him from doing much damage without pissing him off so much he wouldn't work with me, but dealing with bombastic men quickly is beyond me.)