If I win an Oscar…

I am terrible at posing for photographs. I think I lost it somewhere during my teen years, when your chubbiness and awkwardness can no longer be passed off as childish cuteness. It took me years to realize it, and I still struggle with it. Every time, a camera is pointed towards me, whatever little vestige of coolness  I have deserts me and I make a face as if I am teetering on the verge of a major stomach upset.

Like Chandler Bing.

So when a recent portrait I uploaded on facebook got more than 10 likes, I could not believe my own eyes. For a moment, I wondered if this is a parallel universe where everyone likes me. I did a quick Google search. This universe has Mila Kunis and Emma Watson and I still hate Twlight. So things are normal, parallel universe or not. Seriously, who cares about pictures of guys on FB? (Or that is what I would like to believe.) I don’t blame them though. I do the same too. I am choosy about how I distribute my likes and comments. I hold them close to my heart and value their worth in gold. For instance, when a guy’s picture comes up on my newsfeed, all I see is a wall of blur as I ruthlessly continue scrolling past. Doesn’t matter if this guy is a close friend and the picture is actually good.  And I come across a gal’s pic and this particular pic is average at best (This is a hypothesis.None of my FB female friends need be offended). I pause. There are already some 112 likes and 64 comments of “Hawwwwt”,”Sooo pretty”,”Cutieeeeeeee XOXOXO”,”Mashallah!”. My thought process slowly catches its train, “I have spoken to this gal only once in my entire life and I most probably will not recognize her if I see her in person now, but she already has so many likes and comments. I think this picture deserves my “special” like. I’ll just add one more. Maybe it will make her day to see I liked her pic.” And click. I think its a fair justification. And if it is a picture of a group of guys and gals, my retina is tuned so that only the gals move into focus while the guys merge into the background. Anyway, back to my picture. Slowly and steadily, it crossed 15 likes. This was overwhelming! I could barely contain my excitement. Lo and behold! The next day, 20 likes! I was beyond myself. Does anyone remember the scene in Spiderman 2 where Peter Parker walks with a swagger to the song “Raindrops keep fallin’ on my head” playing in the background? Exact same feeling. I told a friend of mine that I feel like giving an acceptance speech thanking everyone, like they do at award ceremonies. She said,”Why don’t you blog about it? In any case, receiving so much love and affection is not good for your ego anyway. It will be good way to get it out of your system and come back to earth”. She was right. So yeah, until this point, this post was about how this post was conceptualized.

Here is the speech (There are chances of me getting a little carried away, but do stay with me):

“Wow, this … this is amazing. I never expected to receive so much love from all you guys in the form of left-clicks on mouses which are worth absolutely nothing in real world.  I feel so humbled. I have struggled hard to reach this stage, where I am standing right now. There were difficult and distressing times, times when I got only 2-3 likes or even worse. Tirelessly,I ran from pillar to post looking for a decent background for my portraits but every time I returned disheartened. I wallowed in self-pity when I saw my classmates and colleagues who are now moms of two kids and double my size in breadth getting many more likes than me. My parents have been a great support system for me in these arduous times. In fact, when the magic number was reached, I immediately called mom and gave her the wonderful news and she was so,so happy.(Wipes tears from corner of the eyes). She is here with us right now. (Points among the audience)”Mom,this one’s for you”. Now, if my prospective in-laws after seeing my pic, ask my parents, “How many likes does this picture have on facebook? Our girl will only marry a boy who has a minimum of 20 likes”, my parents will not have to hang their heads in shame. I would also like to thank Nikon where I got the $1000 camera, and Irfanview, the cheap/free editing software which I used to retouch the said picture. And finally, thanks to Facebook for providing me with the right platform to showcase myself. Thank you Facebook. Thank you Mark Zuckerburg.”

Speaking of parallel universes, I hope this one has mayonnaise. That would be a deal breaker for me.