The Bikini Photo Was Never a Good Idea
In the photo, I’m biting my bottom lip. Perhaps to a stranger — or someone perusing a dating app — it appears cute and sexy. Internally, I knew it was reflective of my own discomfort.
A soon to be married friend had snapped it in between trays of nachos and margaritas on another friend’s bachelorette to Mexico. It was one of those completely non-forgiving suits that I was only able to fit into, and look quite good in, because I’d spent the last three months not eating very much. It’d been two months since my college boyfriend and I (someone I’d been with for nearly seven years) had parted ways. And while I was no longer traipsing through life in a tearful rage, I still had zero appetite to speak of.
So up the photo went, me looking like I had a six pack (really just the product of no consumption), staring wistfully off into the Gulf of Mexico. I made it the first photo, so if someone didn’t see my full profile – they would see this.
Within a few hours I had a litany of unsavory messages:
You look hot.
Nice vacay pic, baby.
That’s hot.
Even as I type this, I’m flooded with shame. What did I expect? I was starved for attention in all the wrong places, but in the moment, I thought it would feel good.
It didn’t. It felt awful. I immediately pulled it down and deleted the messages.
I was 28 at the time. It was still years before a therapist would finally solidify for me that my body dysmorphia was actually indicative of an eating disorder. My Facebook feed was flooded with images of college peers who were walking down aisles and preparing to have babies. 30 felt ever so close. Maybe a photo like this would speed up the timeline?
If you’d asked why, at the time, I pushed that photo live, I’m not sure I would have had an answer for you. But the messages mimicked back exactly what that photo actually portrayed— my fears and insecurities. It wasn’t authentic. It wasn’t genuine. And while I can’t speak to the true desires of any of those men who messaged me over a decade ago, I’d wager to say they weren’t looking for that serious of a relationship. They met me where I was: With a hollow response. Their ego probably would have been more fed simply by being chosen by me (or matching with me), than actually getting to know me.
I deal a lot in profiles and apps these days. I have an entire course dedicated to online dating, with a key portion focusing on selecting images that feel most authentic to you. In my private work, I get into the nitty gritty with app exchanges and usage. Less from a place of teaching cleints some 92-point plan to perfect their messaging. Never. It’s more like this: It’s taking what I know to be true of their internal landscape — their fears, their doubts, their trauma, their insecurities, their narratives — and articulating how that’s influencing their (app) dating experience.
Consider my bikini photo again. From one angle, I’m on a dating app. I’m swiping. On the surface, it appears I’m attempting to meet someone. But from another angle (albeit the more predominant one), it was a play for attention. It was an empty plea from a lonely girl. It was me saying: Please, for all that is good, tell me I’m ok. Tell me I’m ok. Because I’m utterly incapable of doing it myself.
It’s akin to a few years later (yes, the lesson continued on), entertaining a future with a model. Or rather, a guy who I shared zero values with, who wasn’t interested in a long term relationship, who also happened to be a model. I wasn’t actually seeking a relationship (even though I said I was). I was seeking an external factor or element to make me ok. To relieve me of my identity of being the late bloomer, the shy teenager, but also serve as some stamp of approval in the present.
You might be sitting here saying/thinking: But I have no such bikini photo, Clara. I’m not seeking external validation. I’m really, really trying to meet someone.
To which I’d say: I see you. I hear you. Now but tell me, where do your insecurities rest? What do you believe is unlovable about you? What’s the thing you breathe to no one, not even yourself? Oh, and this one for good measure: What are you worried people will think of you?
If I’d taken that lens to my bikini photo, it would have read like this: I think I need to look a certain way to get the type of person I want. I think I need to be a certain way to appear most attractive. And that way is skinny. A particular type of skinny. If I look like that, then I’ll attract the person who can get something like that, and together, we’ll add up to something that from the outside looking in, makes me enough.
Whether it’s a bikini photo, a body image issue, or some other insecurity, any relationship sought from the place of trying to fill a hole within ourselves — whether it’s gaping or small in size — won’t ever amount to the solidity or connection we want. It’ll manifest as creepy messages or zero matches on Bumble, but it’ll still be our nut to crack.
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I think this is such a cool thing to put in your dating profile.