Your 20s are for Narcissism and Why You Need to Forgive Yourself.

There are so many articles being shared on my feed these days about selfies being linked to mental disorder and narcissism its staggering. I get it, selfies are a thing, I’m old, I have to deal with it. But it’s not just selfies: the whole world is wrapped up in itself. We talk about a rampant lack of empathy among peers, and the dating game… don’t get me started! (warning, I’ve already started). The problem is, for those of us in our late 20s and 30s, we find this intense dislike and frustration for the people who are maybe five years younger than us because suddenly something changed and we’ve forgotten why, when we were in our 20s, we acted the way they do. The reality is, we need to forgive ourselves in order to let our younger counterparts do the things that they need to do to get to the place we’re in.

Having spent ten years in my 20s I think it’s safe to say that I’m an expert on this topic. 

First of all, what’s a selfie? If you’re reading this and don’t know, you’re probably going to laugh at the advice I’m giving and want to give me some of your own. Believe me, I’ll take it! That’s one thing I’ve found is after 30, you’re much more willing to take the advice of  your elders. But here’s an example if you want to keep reading.

The duck face, in it's natural habitat

Here I am, giving the duckface. It’s really a classic. I feel that my left side is really my best profile and the way my lips protrude from my beard gives the opposite sex the idea that I’m super confident and sexy. I found that the Losdales filter really brought out my eyes. I hope I get a bunch of likes!

Sarcasm aside, this is what we’re talking about when we think of narcissism. “Look at me! Notice me! FOR GOD’S SAKE SOMEBODY PLEASE NOTICE ME!”

It’s a dance, and you’re doing it because all of your peers are doing it. It’s not really peer pressure, it’s more like you and each of your friends are massive, hydrogen fueled stars in a PULSAR galaxy. Gamma ray bursts (selfies) are firing out of that galaxy so brightly that the rest of the universe (the rest of the universe) can see it, but at this point we all know what’s going on, so we kind of ignore it.

But, if you’re another one of those stars in the galaxy, you pay attention to that gamma ray and you want to be a part of it. I’ll drop the metaphor. You see your friends getting attention: you want attention.

Now because I took a metric-butt-ton of selfies in preparation for this blog I feel the need to share them.

Mom photo bombed
me

I like coffee with my writing, so does
 my Dragon

I really do think my left
side looks best!

So are selfies the cause of narcissism or are selfies the result of narcissism?

Let’s consider the evolution of social relationships for a moment, shall we?

As sexual being, our physiological need is to mate. For males, generally, it’s to accumulate wealth showing females you have the resources to care for off-spring. For females, generally, it’s to show sexual fertility showing you’re able to produce children. We can clearly see these differences when we look at examples of different genders posting selfies.

 If you look at DanBilzarian’s Instagram (Not safe for work) you can see two things.  Pictures that display a great deal of wealth (ability to care for children) and the sheer volume of women that surround him (women are more likely to approach a man who other women have already vetted). Now I use Dan (sorry bro, you're just a great example), who's in his 30s, as an example here because of the reason this narcissism exists. Our 20s are when the majority of the population finds a mate and posting pictures on the internet is a great mating display that can reach a wide audience. 

Now if we take a look at only1aadrea's Instagram, we'll see some different characteristics. Her selfies are about beauty, adventurism, nurturing, and because of those things: fertility. 

What do the two have in common? They're both looking for mates - sexual partners to be more precise - yet they approach it in vastly different ways. Now I don't want to go much deeper than that about why, in nature, men trade resources for sex while women trade children for resources but suffice it to say, when women are pregnant and nursing they are effectively disabled and have a very difficult time gathering resources for themselves. Our modern world has been able to alleviate some of these pressures but from an evolutionary perspective, we have had this idea bread into our physiology and psychology for thousands upon thousands of years.

Men, on the other hand, are physically incapable of having children. So the trade is made willingly.

Check out David Stewart's page, if you haven't already, as I'm sure he's got something more in depth written on this subject.

For those of us who have exited the narcissism of our 20s, why is that? More than likely, we've found a mate, we've found a career, we're having children. This also explains why society wasn't seeing this phenomenon fifty years ago. Besides the fact that selfies and the internet and Instagram weren't around, the majority of people were having children in their early 20s so had no need for this mate attracting, narcissistic streak. Plus, if you have children, I don't think you really have the time for narcissism.

Now, I'm by no means suggesting that rampant narcissism doesn't exist for other reasons. For example:

Mom photo bombed me, so I selfie bombed her!

So if you're post 30 and you're frustrated at all the childish behavior on the internet, what do you do? Well the most important thing is to forgive ourselves. We've all had our share of stupidity and the sooner we can forgive ourselves for it, the sooner we can let other people live their lives and make the same mistakes we needed to make. Life is about making mistakes - if we lived in a bubble and never allowed ourselves to fail there would be no opportunity for growth.

But if you're young and want my advice remember just Las Vegas's slogan: What happens on the internet, STAYS on the internet. Just ask Beyonce.

It's over 9000 shares!

Frankly, we're all children until we're dead. If we give each other a little slack and remember that life's learning curve is pretty high we'd all be a lot nicer to each other. We're going to be learning new things until the day we die, just ask my 95 year old grand father, Chuck, who recently started blogging! 

Selfie on my friends, selfie on.