This Blog Post Is Absolutely About You

People who spend a lot of time worrying about what others are thinking about them should be reassured by a recent interview the University of Chicago behavioral scientist Nicholas Epley gave to Nautilus. Because the thing is: They’re mostly not. Epley’s work suggests that people are naturally ego-centric — that is, self-centered — which means in practice that no one is examining you as closely as you are.

Think of it this way, Epley says: You are an expert on you. And experts notice details about their field of study that novices don’t. “If you’re an expert physicist, you can notice all sorts of small, minute details that nobody else can notice,” Epley said. “If you’re an expert mathematician, you can look at a formula and notice all of its intricacies in a way that a novice can’t.”

I knew it. Like most things best confirmed by a quick scan of the summary to a scientific study you don’t really understand, this study posted on The Science of Us proves so much!

I’m reminded of something I learned in beauty school, actually, when we were learning bridal makeup. The teacher advised us to steer brides away from a red lip with a rueful shake of her head. “They always want a red lip,” she sighed, and explained that the practicalities of keeping red lipstick clean throughout an entire ceremony were futile: people will look at those photos forever, and they’ll never stop seeing the little smudges or cracks. At the time, I was like, whatever, if a bride wants red lipstick and the checks don’t bounce, I’ll do whatever they want. But it is true, as this article points out, that “when you see a picture of yourself you look at all these low-level details…that curl in your hair isn’t quite right, your smile is just a little bit weird, your undershirt is showing just a little bit,” because you are an expert on your own face and you will never, ever be able to see the sum of all those little parts; these fixations are our unconscious life’s work. Alex mentioned this concept a while ago, and as a self-proclaimed self-obsessed person, I’m still thinking of its implications for me.