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Is Selfie-Confidence the New Self-Confidence?

A guy once did a good creep over of all my social media accounts and asked/told me: "You're a good-looking girl, but there's no selfies so you must lack self-confidence?" We never talked again because what the hell.

But then it happened again. A new friend request, then a few days later, "It's weird that you don't post pictures of yourself anywhere. Why is that?"

That was less bizarre to me, so I engaged further in the dialogue, only to be met eventually with the question as to why I wouldn't put up more selfies of myself UNLESS I didn't have confidence in my physical looks.

This time, though, it did make me really wonder about it. Why am I getting slammed for not posting pictures of myself? Doesn't it mean something that I value myself enough, and have enough confidence on my own, without needed the "likes" and approvals of my social media peers? Is "omg hawt" from my friend that feels morally obligated to comment on a selfie really supposed to make my heart flutter with self-confidence?

Why is it now assumed that because I don't take daily pictures of myself and subject my followers to scroll through them imply that I am a heifer? I mean, I am self- aware enough to know I am no model, but I am also confident enough to know that my looks don't make people want to burn their eyes out. Or at least, no one has yet to burn their eyes out after seeing me, that I know of.

If this is a sign of the times, I want out.

I want back to the days where a guy will compliment you in person, and not just throw you a "like" on one of your super-filtered is that even you anymore selfies and call it a day. Let's #throwbackthursday to a time before #wcw'ing someone was a way of telling them you liked them. Oh. My. Gosh. Maybe we can even talk about our feelings face to face and not via text messages rife with ambiguous emojis.

Nah, I'm probably asking too much.

Why I Should Stop Using Dating Apps

By Cazey Williams As I've discussed in a pre​vi​ous blog, I am on several dating apps - but I don't do anything on them. Sure, I match with people and have the occasional ​discourse​, but I have no intention of asking anyone out barring extraordinary circumstances like I don't have homework that week. (Maybe over winter break then?)

Since I recognize this in myself, I have told myself to stop matching with people because it gives false hope to the ladies - but then I don't stop because what else do I do while eating lunch out of Tupperware? Yet I never thought it was to my detriment until last weekend.

The scene: Happy hour at a classy museum. My friend invited me along with several of her friends. I meet "Lisa" who's nice and all that, but as unmemorable as her dating profile because I don't recognize her.

A cider in, I ask Lisa what she does. She squints her eyes when she responds: She's in pre-something school, but she wants to be a doctor, a specific kind of doctor - and it hits me, I've had this conversation before. Ten days ago. With the same exact person.

"I think I need a glass of wine," I announce.

In line to order, I check my recent Bagel Meets Coffee chats, and yup, there she is. Hey, Lisa.

FML. FML. FML.

Now acutely aware that Lisa is my failed-to-launch dating app match - and I'm pretty sure she's known it the whole time - I spend the rest of the evening gulping from my wineglass and SnapChatting/texting my best friends. Meanwhile, Lisa talks with my friend about some guy she had just gone on a date with. A phone is passed around with a picture of the guy.

I glance at the screen and pass it like a hot potato. I mean, it really wasn't that awkward. Maybe she didn't realize (oh, but she did). But this was a great example of why I should stop futilely swiping right on people and even engaging in conversation.

Lisa decided to leave before dinner. She waved goodbye to the group. We made no eye contact, but I ad-libbed, "Nice to meet you."

My friend turned to me. "You're flushed."

"Oh, you know . . . the wine."

Calamity Jane Here...Again

So this past week I went to a conference up in DC. It was a whole day of digital breakout sessions, covering everything from content marketing to search engine optimization to UX design to analytics. Needless to say, I was stoked. The only part  I wasn't excited for was waking up at 5 AM to leave myself PLENTY of time to get there. I mean, I was leaving myself 3 full hours to make a 1 hour 45 minute trip. Should be good, right?

NOPE.

My logic was almost there. I was going to turn on Waze the moment I left the house, but what's the point? It's 5:30 in the morning and I know how to get myself pointed in the right direction to Washington without something barking at me so early in the morning. So, I'll just save it for later.

UGH. TYPING THIS STILL MAKES ME MAD.

I hit traffic within about twenty minutes of leaving my house. And not just traffic, but deadlock. I didn't move. And then I didn't move some more. And then I turned on my GPS, only to see that I wasn't going to be moving for awhile longer. A slow death.

I saw the sun rise in that gridlock. I listened to my mixtape cd one full time in that gridlock (side note: I wish making people mixed tapes were still a thing, because I need more music in my car). I almost cried in that gridlock. But I held myself together.

Finally trickled out of the gridlock. They actually had us get off the highway because all three lanes were shut. And then there were no directions on where to go from there. Naturally, my GPS wasn't working, so I wanted to cry cried again. And then wanted to cried again when I went the wrong way.

But thankfully, I went in the opposite direction that I was supposed to, so I added on 20 more minutes onto my adventure, and finally hit the open road. Success?

Once I made it there, I couldn't get over how upset I was from all the traffic. Horrendous start to the day. But at least the trip back home would be better right?

HA.

It would get dark as soon as I leave, right? Check.

And rain a bit? Nope.

Rain a whole lot? That's more like it.

Fog? The cake needs icing, doesn't it? Yup.

Glorious day for travel all around. Claps. -_-

The Antithesis of the Megaphone of Media: Social Media

I suspect that social media is popular because it gives everyone a form of expression, regardless of what platform(s) you decide to use. If you're a shutterbug, you've got Instie to play on, if you have half baked quips, you can tweet your heart out, and if you like collecting people, there's Facebook. But what's even better is that every now and then, people take a few moments from self-promotion to respond to other's people inane thoughts. The inspiration of this statement was my dining experience this week. As some of you may remember, I've been fine-dining in jeans and a t-shirt before, so it shouldn't be that shocking that I'd decide to go out to dinner immediately after working out. But then there's a wait, and my two roommates leave me by myself to go pick up one of their credit cards. So now I'm looking slumpy AND alone.

So I take out my phone to look busy, and decide to tweet, "Alone and sweaty @CapitalAleHouse. #LifeIsGood #rva."

Then I put my phone away and people watch a bit. My roommates make it back, and we eventually get a table. We dine on $2 burgers and ginger ale (okay, so the ginger ale was only me). And then we go home.

I hop back on Twitter, like I do most nights before bed. AND THEN I NOTICED THAT CAP ALE RETWEETED AND FAVORITED MY TWEET! Lawd, I was cracking up. I tag people constantly in tweets, and everyone ignores me. Except for the one time I tweet something minimally embarrassing and rather silly. Being listened to is fun.

And I would go as far to say I'm not the only one that thinks so. Part of my job is monitoring our social media accounts, so I run searches multiple times a day with various spellings of our names. And I respond to people that are talking to us or about us. And it usually catches people off guard, and I love it. Most of the time, people appreciate it, but every now and then people are just complaining and not actually looking to engage in conversation with me.

But let's focus on the good: people genuinely seem excited when I reply, favorite or retweet them. They thank me for listening, they throw us a follow, or shout us out. And I like it because it's content I don't have to produce. So let's do that more often: listen. There's a lot of good stuff happening on social media, if only we all actually listened to each other.

What's Your Worst Quality?

So I haven't gotten this interview question since applying to be a camp counselor in high school, but have long since been practicing an answer to this question anyway. How do you answer "What's your worst quality?" in a way that doesn't totally suck? My answer from high school was a total basic bitch answer of "I am a people person and try to make everyone around me happy, even if that means I'm not happy." Not only does that not really apply to my personality, but it's also like the number one bad answer to that question.

Should I ever be put on the spot for this question, I'm wondering if my inability to get my "who" vs. "that" problem under control is applicable? Is being able to readily name one of my biggest grammatical flaws a strong enough answer to this question? Because in my mind, this just means I am in tune with myself, but also shows that I have great grammar skills to know that it's an issue.

I could even elaborate about how I would CTRL + F my work everyday to double check for any "that" "who" issues. I had a post-it note on my computer to remind myself to do it. And now I can almost always get it right on the first try after being called out on it so often, and learning to mercilessly scour my work for it. So there is even a success story at the end of this proposed answer.

I'm starting to this is the only really good answer possible to the "What's your worst quality?" question because it points out a clear flaw (but not a land mine of an answer), but also highlights what I do to combat my problem, which seems to me like a recipe for a good answer.

Recognition of a minor flaw + how you will/have fixed it = success.