Egoism is a curse. Vanity is a problem. Narcissism is a mental illness. Total and complete self-absorption to the point of self harm and harm to those around you is insanity.
Women check themselves out in reflective surfaces.
And when I say reflective surfaces, I mean ANY reflective surface; the glass cabinet at home, a glass shop window, a spoon on a set table, the shiny surface of a bowl of soup, the mirror in a person’s eye and the reflection off a bald man’s head. Women can’t help themselves. They spent close to fifty minutes getting ready to go out today (if they were fast) and as if that weren’t enough, they have to check themselves in every single reflective surface they see all day – for what? To make sure the makeup is still good? Surely that can be done when you take a toilet break. Perhaps it is to check that you’re not bald, you haven’t grown three extra inches or put on forty pounds.
As if all of this isn’t bad enough, women will actually risk their own life and the life of a child in order to check themselves out in a reflective surface. (I say reflective surface rather than mirror, because if women would restrict themselves to mirrors, they’d cut the looking out by 9/10ths. But women will look at themselves in the reflection of the rear view mirror while driving (not watching the road or the back of the car), they will stare at themselves as they walk down the street (and inevitably bump into people) and they will push past others to get to a mirror. They are ruthless, exacting and dangerous in their attempt to see themselves because a full thirty seconds have gone by since the last time they looked. The thing women need to remember is that you’re being seen as you look at yourself in the reflective surface and you are being judged. You are not invisible. We can all see you doing it.
Narcissus is the myth of a man who stared so long at his own reflection he was consumed by it. This is what has happened to women. They are so afraid that they no longer exist (no substance) that they need to see themselves in reflective surfaces in order to understand that they are real and they are here.
In romance novels women don’t need to look in reflective surfaces all the time because they are feisty and fun and like themselves very much. Oh, and of course they have the hottest guy in history standing by them telling them how sexy they are all the time.
