Of Facebook profile pictures, friend requests and the borderline Misandrist.

A Facebook friend vain enough to sport shades and a self-mobile-clicked photo as his profile picture once admitted to adding girls because they looked cute in their PP and later deleted them after he saw them in real life.  And he later complained about how misguiding PP's can be. 

Need I repeat the very funny fake account that took the Mizo Facebookers by storm just a couple of weeks back? I won't. Because I refuse to let that insignificant episode taint my blog. But then again I think that episode explains a lot about men and Facebook PPs.

Anyways, the fake account with the pretty PP and the vain friend's complaint triggered me to write this post. 

Let me tell you my side of the story with my Facebook profile pictures. Both untouched, both 'un-photoshopped'.

This picture is me.

The picture was taken about a year ago when I spotted this felt mustache at a friend's place and decided to fool around with it. I have no makeup on, my hair is uncombed, my thick glasses are perched on my button nose and this picture was taken with a 2mp phone camera. I liked this picture a lot. This is sooo me! The felt mustache and what my Sunday School students called my 'rubber face'. One particularly bold student told me later 'You're old but fun' after coming across this picture. Coming from a 11 year old, I took it as a major compliment.This picture was my Facebook PP for about three months before I switched it. 

 Let's go the other picture.

This picture is also me.

This picture was taken in November last year at the backstage of the campus Confluence Night. I was in traditional costume, full-on makeup, good lighting, good angle, my glasses are gone and the man behind the expensive camera is a man in love. (Ok!! I just got corny!). I think I look very pretty in this picture and I liked it but not as much as I like the first one. This picture was my PP for about a month until I changed it to this.

This caption is something I wish to be.

Yes, it's a bible caption but who hasn't ever dreamt of being the Proverbs 31 woman?? Well, I have! 

But my main point is that the amount of friend requests I received while using the 2nd picture is overwhelming. Overwhelming as in up to 13 requests in a day!! . But then after a month of deleting friend requests (I'm sorry, I don't add people I don't know), I got tired and changed the picture to the bible caption. And the friend requests drop down drastically to only one in a week, which came from a girl I know in North Delhi who realized she hasn't add me yet!  True Story!

I get that the second picture is appealing to many people. I think I look pretty in the picture too and that is exactly why I use it as a PP. I don't think I look pretty in the first picture, but I love it because one look at the picture will describe who I am - a person who's fun and who's not scared to make a fool of herself. And if I have to pick which one is more me, it's definitely the first picture. I am the person in the second picture once a week (Yep - I wear make-up only on Sundays and special occasions.), yet, nonetheless, it is still my picture. I've been told I'm photogenic and I heartily agree that I'm not as striking in person as I am in pictures. But that doesn't mean my pictures aren't me! I have the right to post both these two pictures because they are both me. Inspite of that, I've decided I will continue using captions as PPs until I recover from the shock of the superficiality of men I've encountered through the single PP!

A close friend of mine famously quoted about men "They are ruled by their vision and they have brains between their legs". Our male friends love to hate that quote but can do nothing much about her attitude because, I feel, they know she's right in some aspects.

I've been a borderline misandrist for quiet sometime now. So many times have I been disappointed by shallow men and their choices in life. So many times have I been bruised by men whose visions ruled their world. Just these experiences would have been enough to drive me to the border.  But there are just two things that kept me from crossing over to the island of Man-Haters:

1. I cannot judge a man because I'm not one. It's just the way we are wired. Just like men cannot get what gets us women going and what ticks us off. You cannot generalize it. Everyone is different.

2. And most importantly, I have a few good men in my life who still amaze me and surprise me with their decisions, their train of thoughts and the way they choose live their life. These handful of men keeps me from portraying men as disgusting creatures.

But then again, this is for all those men who add girls because of cute PP's and delete them later. _____ you. (I use the F word only in my mind.) Don't complain about the girl putting her best picture in her PP, she has every right to show her best to the world. It's not as if you didn't put up your best picture for your PP.  Stop accusing others of being a hypocrite when you are one too. There's more to life than being an arse!!

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Ah!!! That's liberating!! :D