“People have a self-image. For example you think you are Mary Poppins, but you’re not,” the soldier said.
I snorted. I don’t think I am Mary Poppins but I wanted to hear what he thought I was so I asked. ‘Oh yeah? Then what I am I?” I asked.
“Oh, you’re like Rachel Ray crossed with the Sopranos,” he said. “Yeah, that’s what you are,” he said smugly.
I laughed. “I see. And you? What are you?”
“Well I am a nice guy,” he said.
I roared. “Yep, you just happen to threaten to kill people on a daily basis.”
“P, I’m a nice guy.”
I let it drop but later it came back up.
“Anyway, I don’t think I am Mary Poppins. You’re the one who thinks I am the gal in Sound Of Music. She’s pretty damned pure you know.”
“They’re one in same, I think.”
I gave up. He was just too keen in the moment. But I feel my self image is very in line with what others think.
Matter of fact my friend, Ben told me pretty much the same thing 25 years ago when he called me Gidget with a dark side. I have been telling people for years, dimples or no – Beware the undertow!
Do you think your self image is in line with how others see you?
I got told that I’m an iron-fist-in-velvet-glove type. I don’t know about that. My parents are/were iron-fist-minus-glove sorts (though my mom is pretty much Sally Field’s blonde clone otherwise) and they steamroll(ed) me constantly and I can’t roll back over them no matter how much I yell. So I can’t say I feel that I can act like that to other people. If I try, I feel like a tiny squeaking mouse that people ignore and step on.
So I was probably born that way (i.e. steamroller) and intended to be that way, but I got squished too often and early to ever really manifest it except in bad situations/when parents aren’t around. Hence the “velvet glove,” I guess.
no.
i usually have not the foggiest how others see me….
I recently had a highschool friend tell me I was “fucking Buddha”. *cough* Not as in the act itself, but as in, totally zen and cool and stuff. Completely calm. Unaffected. Wise beyond my years. All that nonsense.
And I said, “Uh, you realize that’s a TOTAL front, right?”
She said, “Well, I do now!”
No. I hate when people argue with me telling me who I am and what I think?! I have known me since birth and beyond and I’m quite sure I know who I am and what I think. 😉
i used to think i knew, but then i wrote to you, dear elsa, in july of 2006, and you straightened my butt right out. (yeah, not as little miss innocent as i’d thought).
My SO had this perception of me being the good, Catholic girl with a serious, conservative personality so he was very surprised once he got to know me on a more intimate basis. I suspect it’s my Sun trine Saturn with Libra rising that gave him–and maybe others–this perception. Most of the time I feel like a 12-years-old gypsy girl who has managed to trick others into seeing her as a capable, multi-talented career woman. A former boyfriend used to say I was eaxactly like the woman described in the song “She’s always a woman to me.” I have to admit he’s probably right but I think the lyrics in that song probably describe most Gemini women.
–Anna the Gemini
I think I use that Neptune energy on purpose most of the time. Because some people are going to understand me right away, the ones who have more in common with me, and some are going to need some time to figure me out. People who are too different to understand right away, and don’t want to take the time are welcome to just make assumptions, but it is to my advantage to choose what they assume.
I’m sure you know what I mean, Elsa, because you are an astrologer and you’ve talked before about the kind of assumptions people make about you. I guess I’m like the Scarlet Pimpernel in that movie with Anthony Andrews and Jane Seymour. If someone is likely not going to take me seriously anyway, they may as well do it on my terms.
Try to stay out of the limelight as much as possible. I think its my off beat mercury conjunct Uranus that turns peoples heads. I’m not sure they see me in a positive way or not though. If they see how I feel it is quirky and never quite in control of my mind. Maybe like a mix of Alice in wonderland…
Togi – you always make me LMAO. You Virgos are so underrated!! 🙂
Not. At. All. People see me as one of two things: either moody and emotional, or perky and empty-headed.
It is quite possible that I spout off over something and am over it, getting back to my perky self. And it’s possible that I’m not a complete moron either.
Bah. In some ways, it works for me. Most people underestimate my influence (Heck, even I do!) and intelligence, and then find these things out when push comes to shove, and find themselves knee deep in butt-kicking.
Actually, yes. I like that they don’t see the real me. oh yeah. But then, a Scorpio ascendent would love secrets, wouldn’t she?
I can’t get a grasp on how others see me. So I just muddle through being myself and doing my best to defend when people get me too badly wrong.
I dont think so…
Have Pisces Rising and Mars conjucnt Neptune in the 10th with Libra thown in for good measure. I always get people thinking im sweet, navie, dreamy, not a care in the world, laid back kinda person and not that im not these things but I have a scorpio sun conjunct Pluto in the 8th and theres alot more to me than…eh nice.
People think Im fickle when in fact im passionate, loyal, dark and intense. Even friends who know me for a long time and know this to some extent somehow erase this knowlege of me or deny it but thats Neptune for you.
I often wonder how people perceive me, they probably see a well composed tall skinny guy that never says much. I think it depends on how well someone knows me. It probably varies greatly depending on my state of being as well. My perception of myself changes moment to moment…
I see myself as Zena, the Warrior Princess especially now that I can do bicep curls with 20lb weights.
I think I am not as bad as some people think I am, and not as good as some people believe I am. (How Neptune is that? 😉 ha!)
I’m seriously in flux right now so I don’t have an answer.
neptune’s at the bottom of my chart and I’m never really sure how people see me. scratch that– sometimes I think I know and then when I become sure I’m proven wrong.
Not sure how others see me, but it never really lines up with how I see myself. I just looked at my chart and realized that I have Neptune exactly quincunx my Sun, and Neptune sextile my ascendant. So there is a strong possibility that people see me however they want.
I’ve been called a sledgehammer, a know-it-all, a “strict Mother”, and other such scary stuff. I’m not scary, stern, or imposing at all. Aries rising, Saturn in the 1st, Jupiter exactly opposite ASC.
I don’t think people see how me for who I really am. I’m a mixed bag, really. hee!
I think my face freaks people out–I can go from supercheery to calm in a nanosecond–except my calm face looks like ::ahem:: someone before they stab you unexpectedly. Maybe it’s Pluto opposed Mars? I don’t know.
I think my Sun opposed my Scorpio MC confuses people do. I could say “I’m nicer than you expect” and then say “I’m more ruthless than you’d expect.”
I used to feel embarrassed by my Aries Mars but I quite like it now that I’m a bit older (almost 31, whoo). I feel much more in control of things (good for a Cap Moon).
I just turned 50 last week — Aries sun, Pices moon, Gemini rising, and even my mother says she’s never understood me. Personally, I think I’ve always been pretty transparent and worn my heart on my sleeve.
OT: I’m 11:11 too Togi. Every freaking apartment I live in now has 11 in it at least in a few places. We’re being stalked by a number! lol
A lot of people see different things with me. At work, though, with Saturn and Mars on the midheaven, I have a lot of people who think I am Very Serious, and/or Angry.
Usually they’re right. But that’s because everybody at work is incompetent.
Oh, I’m not angry, not really. It was a joke.
I see myself as a butterfly – floating around in the breeze, laughing without cares in the world, wanting to be caught but then fleeing the moment I am…honestly I’m still trying to figure out who I am.
To others I’m a driven, talented, sucessful, glamorous, fly, fun, adventurous and sweet girl…with a strong personality…but I think others see that I still don’t know what I want…
Sag sun, aries moon, gem/cancer rising…totally conflicted chart.
“Let them think I’m bad,I know I’m good. It gives me dimension.” – SeanPenn or vice versa. Can people only see what they are in the moment? Yea, me too?