Interesting question. I love how I look. Didn’t always. Insofar as how my feelings appropriate real life… all I can really know is that I began to measure up more to my idea of what looks good. I love loving how I look now after not liking my looks as a teen. I like measuring up.
I know I ought to divorce myself from that sort of thinking in preparation for the day when I look in the mirror and wonder who this old woman is. And because, as a few above have pointed out, looks oughtn’t matter. I shouldn’t be so pleased that I somewhat approximate the current standard for sexiness that our culture has propagated.
Or maybe I shouldn’t mind so much that I am, in fact, pleased – after all, isn’t being anti-establishment, as a reactionary stance, still acting in response to the establishment and thus being controlled by it to some extent? Neurotic logic-circles aside, I have become fairly self-voyeuristic over the past few years, especially when I shed a few pounds. Perhaps vanity is something I can only accept about myself.
@DominicX I had an amazingly fast metabolism in college, but then my stomach went crazy and I’ve now started to experience the beginnings of the slowing metabolism. It is a bit tricky, but I’ve found that adjusting to it is a matter of two things: smaller portioning (Americans are trained to eat as much as is in front of them), and eating slowly in order to pay attention to how hungry you are as you continue to eat. It’s easy to overshoot the fullness-feeling and end up feeling like a log unless I eat in stages. I imagine this will get much worse in the future, as I am only in my mid-twenties.