Social media is a fickle mistress. Everyone spends forever editing a picture before posting it making sure their teeth are white, their legs look fit and you can’t see any cellulite, then topping it off with the perfect filter. I’m guilty just like everyone else. The thought of putting a picture up for the whole world to see where I look less than my best stresses me to no end. Maybe it’s because everyone else edits their photos too and they always look so perfect or maybe its residual damage from being bullied in middle school. The world may never know.
My fiancé, James is not of this school of thought. He just posts whatever picture however it was taken. He may slap on a filter but it’s not a thought out deliberation on “that makes my skin look tan but my hair look orange so maybe just black and white.” It’s more like “that looks cool. Post.” It used to drive me insane. He always seemed to pick the pictures where I’m laughing or doing something strange or you can see my one crooked tooth, whereas I always pick the ones where he looks like a model. Always. Which he does, always.
James is the kind of attractive people notice. He just is. He’s the kind of hot that you find a good soul under the good body. He knows this. I could fill a book with the women’s whose heads turn when he’s around. He’s strong and kind and funny and easily the sexiest human being I’ve ever seen. (I mean seriously look at him…) And good lord does he love me. Even though I firmly believe that he will forever be the popular boy who fell in love with the weird girl he met in middle school. He just loves me. He’s more likely to tell me how beautiful he thinks I am fresh out of the shower than dressed to the 9’s.
I asked him once why he always used bad pictures of me. I was pretty frustrated that we had hundreds of professionally taken pictures and he always used the ones of me sleeping with our dogs or doing something goofy or, God forbid, ones when my hair was garbage. But those are his favorites. The ones of our life, not the ones that are posed and perfected. That’s just James. He shares some pretty intimate moments just the way they are. No editing no changing. Just like the way he loves me… no editing, no changing. He loves the crazy hair and the giggles over our dogs more than he loves the perfect hair and makeup. That’s just our life. We’ve spent a lot of years loving each other through some really horrible times and some really, REALLY beautiful ones.
These pictures that he picks are the moments that he loves me the most. They’re the moments of our real life. So instead of thinking about how something isn’t right in them I think about the love that caused him to take the picture in the first place. When I see them I think of the way I was looking at him just before the picture or the way he made me laugh or how it feels when he kisses me. All of that is better than the approval of social media in the background.
I think he fell in love with me because of my sense of humor. He says it’s that I’m compassionate and that I’m easy to love (false…it’s because I’m hilarious). He always tells me that my looks are just a bonus. He fell in love with my soul. Loving someone is loving them at their most normal, not their most perfected. Loving them right out of the shower more than when they’re dressed up for the world. Just loving them how they are for their mind, body and soul. So maybe that’s what we all need is to fall in love with a person’s soul not their body.
Sources
Giphy.com
Hannah Elizabeth Photography (10/10 would recommend for your photography needs!)