my hyperfixation
why am I so obsessed with stalking myself from someone else’s POV?
It’s 11pm. I’m in bed, lights off, phone in hand. I told myself I’d be asleep by 9. I also promised I’d put my phone down at least 30 minutes before bed. Failed both.
I’m scrolling. But not through TikTok’s FYP or my Instagram news feed like you’d think. I’m scrolling through my own profiles. Another hour has passed.
Is this narcissism? Or insecurity?
Whenever I fall into this rabbit hole, I’m looking at myself through someone else’s eyes. I get completely caught up, imagining how one specific person might view me. It’s always someone oddly specific: an old friend I haven’t spoken to in years. An ex-crush. A distant family member. A random mutual. I want them to see me and notice how much I’ve changed. How far I’ve come. There’s always an imagined audience.
I constantly wonder how I come across to other people. How my self-perception compares to the way others see me. And honestly, I don’t know why I do this. I’m not someone who usually cares much about other people’s opinions of my life. Sure, like most people, I want to be liked to some extent, but I don’t rely on external validation to feel confident.
But then I realized: this whole habit of viewing myself through someone else’s point of view is really about the online version of me.
I’d like to say I present myself authentically on the internet, but I’ll admit it: I’m curated. I don’t show the weekends when I don’t leave the house. I don’t show the fact that I’ve been living in oversized t-shirts and pajamas all week. I show aesthetic shots of my morning coffee before a busy workday, the view from my hotel room, and my newest vintage outfit. And so, I end up stalking my own online presence, trying to decide: if I were someone else, would I find myself interesting? Unique? Individualistic?
This phenomenon is amplified even further when I meet someone new and they follow me on my socials. Once they hit that follow button, I go home and scroll down my Instagram until I reach my first post. While scrolling, I imagine I’m this new person, painting a picture of myself for the first time. The funny part is, you would think I’d be stalking the profile of the new friend or stranger I just met. But no, I’m analyzing myself. I usually just glimpse through their accounts briefly and then go back to fixating on my own pictures, captions, and tagged posts.
Realizing how little I pay attention to their account, it’s pretty unlikely they’re paying any attention to mine.
I know this has probably been said a million different times before, but social media really is its own little universe. One that often feels completely detached from real life. I spend hours each week hyper-focused on the version of myself I’m presenting online, when I could’ve been reading, writing, making art, or literally doing anything else that actually fills me up.
So now I’m trying to figure out what comes next. Because the truth is, I do enjoy the internet. I like filming and editing videos. I like interacting with my 2K TikTok followers. I enjoy posting Instagram photo dumps. But I’m realizing the healthiest thing I can do is simply post and move on.
I don’t need to obsess over whether the aesthetic I’m giving off is “right.” It’s not that deep, and it never was.