The Little Man Who Lives In My Head

“It finally clicked. I have bad self esteem when it comes to men.” — Journal Entry, October 27, 2015
I have a little man who lives in my head. He’s been there practically as far back as I can remember. He’s a consistent male gaze, approving, disapproving, judging, and watching my every move to see if I met his standards. His form is fluid, constantly shifting and changes from week to week. Currently, he’s here with me and has taken the shape of one of my ex-boyfriends. Or rather, ex-lover. We were never “official,” even though we were monogamous and went out with each other for close to half a year. Welcome to modern dating.
He’s watching me write this article. He’s judging each word I use to form my sentences and scoffs every time I make a typo. He sees the thoughts that skirt across my head, scrutinizing and picking apart each one. Now you may be thinking, how can anyone live like this? This would turn anyone into an anxious, dysfunctional wreck. Well by broad definition, I’m fairly sane and normal. I’m a 26 year old writer slash fine artist and animator. I love making people laugh and pulling socially awkward wallflowers onto the dance floor. By all social accounts, I’m confident and I’ve always gone to the beat of my own drum.
But I’ve had this complex tucked away in the back of my head like a dirty little secret. In all my fantasies where I’m accomplishing something, I have a “male voyeur” in my imagination. Usually it takes the form of an ex-boyfriend, current boyfriend, or a guy I’m attracted to. So whenever I’m accepting my Emmy or Oscar for Best Screenplay in my mind, there he is applauding in awe, or in the case of an ex-boyfriend, regretting all his life’s choices.
This imaginary male watching me becomes the cornerstone of validating my own victory. Which in theory, is absolutely ludicrous. I don’t write for anyone but myself. In fact, when I’m truly dropping into a story, it’s one of the few, rare moments where the little man vanishes. However in my subconscious mind, the presence of this approving male figure makes the moment all worth it. But in reality, moments involving reward or recognition would be just as sweet if it were just my family and a few close friends there to watch. So why is he always there?

Recently, I discussed this with my mother and she admitted that she’s lived with same complex her entire life, even now. This woman is a natural leader, started her own business, and she’s probably the most talented person I know. If someone like her has a little man in her head, there must be others, powerful people I would least suspect, who suffer from it too. Living with the little man in my head has become a total paradox for my feminist beliefs. It’s only recently where I’ve really begun to acknowledge it and ask, why? When and how did this all start? Nowadays, the little man almost always takes the form of an existing person that I have a romantic interest in. However, flashback to my childhood, this wasn’t always the case.
Picture a 3-year-old Eurasian girl hypnotized, inches away from the screen watching the Disney classic, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Speaking as a total animation nerd, this film is an undeniable work of genius. The animals, aside from their adorable, big-eyed stares, had realistic movements and mannerisms of the creatures they were based on. Snow White herself was drawn with such mesmerizing 3-dimensionality (based on a technique called rotoscoping), that it almost seemed like you could reach out and touch her. Walt Disney set the bar pretty damn high in terms of the first feature-length animated film, successfully blurring the lines between extreme fantasy and reality.

Unfortunately if you’re going to create something that’s essentially eye candy for the senses, it’s very hard for a young, impressionable mind to make realistic distinctions. A particular snapshot comes to mind of Snow White singing at the wishing well. The Prince climbs ove