by Annie Lynsen

Look at this girl with huge, frizzy hair, oversized glasses, and that special, awkward grin only adolescence and a mouthful of braces can bring. That was me in junior high - the typical, awkward teen.

Astonishingly, I didn't get a lot of dates then. I wasn't one of the "pretty-pretties" - the popular girls, the cheerleaders. In retrospect my body was pretty amazing - I was a dancer, and didn't surpass 110 pounds until high school - but I hated that I was built like a Skipper doll, with no boobs and no hips. My skin was pale to the point where my mom begged me to wear blush so I "wouldn't look dead."

But one day in my mid-teens I was reflecting on the story of the ugly duckling, and made a decision to put mind over matter. I was going to tell myself that I was the most gorgeous, fascinating thing that walked the earth, and my own positivity would attract others and make me "date-able."

It actually worked. Suddenly I found it a bit easier to make friends and started getting a date here and there. I was more confident, or at least appeared to be. What people may not have realized was that my "ego" was just a facade covering a shaking, anxious, insecure self-image, desperate for approval from her peers.

But even though I'm well beyond my awkward phase, I still default to vanity-disguising-deep-insecurity mode, feeding off compliments and other people's perceptions of my body to determine my self-worth.

Not that I haven't tried to build legitimate confidence in my how I look. I work out five times a week, and women's magazines always say that physical exercise makes you feel better about your body, by getting you to focus on the things it can DO as opposed to the way it looks. But they always say that in the same breath as a headline that screams "Get flat abs now!" And when I'm gritting my teeth on the elliptical trainer, I can't say I'm mentally marveling at how my arms can go back and forth at the same time as my legs…I'm more focused on hoping the torture will be over soon.

And the reason I spend 30 minutes, five days a week torturing myself in the gym is because, like most women, I went through the inevitable post-college weight gain that led to the inevitable post-weight-gain obsession with diet and exercise. I find myself fixated on my own body shape and size to the point of obnoxiousness, especially in the summer. Not because summer brings swimsuit season, but because summer brings…SCI-FI CONVENTIONS.

Yes, I'm a big nerd, and I love to dress up like science fiction characters. But as part of my body complex, I intentionally choose a skimpy or tight costume months ahead of convention season, then use the costume as motivation to keep to a strict diet and exercise regimen. To my friends' and coworkers' annoyance, I spend months openly worrying about looking bad in a costume I myself chose to wear. (I'm amazed I have any friends left, honestly.) But despite all the crap I put myself and others through, getting positive reactions at conventions is priceless to me. Having people ask to take my picture while I'm in costume, telling me how great I look…it feeds my soul in ways I can't describe.

I know I'm not supposed to define myself by how others see me, but darn it, I'm human, and I'll admit that when someone unexpected says I'm beautiful or flirts with me, it quiets the stirring monster of self-doubt inside my brain for a few minutes.

It's not wrong to enjoy compliments - in fact, it sucks when somebody responds to a compliment with self-deprecation. But I should focus on building my confidence more from within than without. So by way of this blog post, I pledge I will try. Bit by bit, I will start reminding myself that I'm about more than my looks, and that I don't need compliments to feel good about myself. The frizzy-haired teen I once was is gone now, and even if I still yearn for bigger boobs, higher cheekbones, a tighter butt, smaller thighs, and six-pack abs, I don’t need to put on a mask for people to like me.

I hope.