My confidence, vanity and ego are a holy trinity that tries to be only seen and not heard. 

In truth, public image, reception, and connotations are the snakes in the garden that try to undermine my trinity and majesty. 

So I learned quickly, with a dose of humbleness and admittance of help from a willing sister, do not match the vertical with horizontal, the denim with yet more denim. It began with clothing and rather abruptly evolved to appearance in totality. Jewellery adorned; hair done-did; the right shoes with the hard, wooden heel which commands due attention upon the nearest tiled floors. 

It stands as such a curious case for myself, as for one so vigorously introverted adores the prospect of being a glimmer and thus worthy distraction in the corner of most everyone’s eye.

I wish for them to wonder but forsake my soul if they come up to me and ponder.

Despite the curious case I’ve created, It has worked effortlessly in my favour.

I hold few friends dear, for as much as I despise those walking up to me, I wouldn't ever deign do the same. The few I do, however, all share the same incredible and invaluable trait: they tamper and tread all over my ego. They trudge, trample and very much tickle it silly. 

There is no one mirror nor vaguely reflective surface that finds itself void of the gracious gift of my gratitude and appearance. Much, severely so, to the dismay of such friends. They tire of stopping and waiting for me, only ever uttering general apathy towards the distracted man and himself found and bound within a world of their own. 

Believe me, I am distinctly aware of the fallacy representing this state of mind. I’ve not an insignificant amount of inherit and inherited issues that tarnish the garnish of this body and mind. There’s enough auto-immune diseases that stand stalwart in the way of a fresh complexion. There’s no chance of existing on a Men’s Health cover; I live just below and yet still proud of my own folds. 

It is with this honest awareness shared by both myself and my friends, that the aforementioned snakes in the garden became entirely necessary and uniquely supplemental to whom I find myself existing as now. To those such onlookers whom I grant the opportunity to view my myth, I can only imagine they see a man who is indeed full of himself. Who thinks only surface-level thoughts about his hair and how well-perfected the three-colour rule was fulfilled today. 

However, it is never that succinct. Within that world between him and me, it is indeed filled with a healthy level of self-adoration, but as always, alongside my appearance are my skills. My abilities, my strengths and weaknesses. You see him brushing off his speckles of dust and skin from a shoddy complexion, incessantly harassed by psoriasis, that stands as physical reminders of the flaws that make up who he is. You see him place every curl that went awry back into place, unknowing that they stand as his strengths. Tying a shoelace or two, re-rolling an uneven cuff, reminding himself that skills often undo themselves, but mend them as they mend not themselves. 

As always, there is an ego in this soul, but I rebuke its negative connotations.

They delve so much deeper than an onlooker would think, and it is clear for any person to whom it opens up wide. 

My name, the writing credit you read quickly past to get to his part, is yet another physical extension of that. That middle name is but a reflection of who I view myself as and how I wish for others to see me. As I write this, my middle name is Steven, but I care not for it and am actively undergoing the process of changing it.

I have always seen that name as ugly as mixing horizontal and vertical stripes. 

I can feel the eyes of the onlookers thinking this process is wasteful and purely for vanity, time-consuming and relatively meaningless for a middle name. 

I view it as I do myself in any such mirror and vaguely reflective surface.