like pretending that the cork you just sniffed at the fancy formal doo is telling you something other than how much you would rather have a beer instead
Ouch Chris, I'd never go that far in trying to please others.
My Mom wanted to smoke when she was a young las, because she thought a cigarette in a long filter looked elegant. Luckily for her it didn't take. Just a point I'm making that it can be a bit self desrtuctive trying to look a certain way purely to appeal to others.
I was made aware of how unstable your image really is when I had to wear glasses at the age of 6. Not pretty little dainty ones, but big fat ones. Amost over night I went from "likeable" to "social outcast". (It was a really backward small-town school I went to though, teasing other people was about the only fun the kids got to have). I had to change who I was because of the way people treated me, and when my parents, the perceptive people that they are, got me contacts as soon as I was old enough, it took me a lot longer to adjust to being, well, normal, than it did for the other kids, who had found some one else to pick on (by the way this was where I first encountered karma, when one of the boys who teased me most had to get glasses too, although he somehow managed to lose them fairly quickly).
Ever since I always keep in mind that whether you like it or not, you were born into an image, your own body, that people will repond to in a way that you can't control.
One of the reasons I love my boyfriend is because in his cupboard he has goth clothes, hippie/trance clothes, a suit or two, messy painting clothes and a couple of conservative outfits his brother is surreptitiously bringing him. And then in the store room there's a wolf suit, a flesh suit, a psychedelic alien suit, a couple of medieval weapons, a mirror suit, a fiber- optics suit and a plant suit.
I think if you want to play around with your image it's one of the most healthy things you can do. You'll most likely bump into plenty perconceptions you never thought you had and change them.
