Q. I’ve been unphotogenic for as long as I can remember. On dating apps I would barely get any matches. On the odd occasion I would manage to get a match, I’d be gleefully told by my dates how shocked they were that I was “pretty in real life”. I have since given up on apps and my self-esteem has plummeted to the point of also giving up on love. The event that triggered this letter was attending a recent graduation ceremony for my postgraduate degree. I spent much of the day feeling stressed due to my parents’ and grandparents’ insistence on photographing everything. If I ever get married, will I feel cripplingly self-conscious on my wedding day? During my honeymoon? The birth of my first child? I can’t keep living this way, but every time I see myself on a screen I’m so gutted by how ugly I look.
A. Babe, you caught me at the right moment to answer this. I’ve just embarked on a six-week campaign to promote my new book and every day I will be confronted with a fresh unflattering photo of myself. There will be tagged posts of me on Instagram, puce and animated with half-closed eyes and ten chins, sitting awkwardly on a stage with a microphone. There will be photos of me, grey-faced and puffy-eyed in the early morning, bending down to gingerly put my arm around a normal-sized radio host. A professional photo was taken of me at an event last week that was so bad I genuinely didn’t recognise myself. I didn’t even look like a human — I looked like I had been crafted in Plasticine by Nick Park and put into a Wallace and Gromit film to play an evil woman who sells poisoned iced buns.
It’s an absolute killer. Particularly when I feel pretty great on leaving the flat. I always wear good shoes and I always have neat, brushed, gelled eyebrows. Whoever thought we’d be gelling our eyebrows? But we do. And we look fantastic. Until we’re photographed and someone shows us the picture on their phone, and suddenly we’re Denis Healey in drag and all our confidence is gone and we don’t want to stay at the party, we want to get the bus home and stop for a Filet-O-Fish on the way.
No one likes having their picture taken. Everyone is confronted with images that make them question whether they’re living in a Black Mirror episode where they see a different reflection to the one everyone else sees. Every good selfie you see on Instagram leaves a wake of 98 unused ones on the cutting room floor. My friend and I used to set aside an hour each — EACH — on beach holidays to capture one carefree photo for the grid.
The most obvious solution is to access your memories through what you felt rather than the accompanying photos. Instead of focusing on the pictures of your graduation ceremony, try to remember why you were there. You got a postgrad degree. That’s amazing! Letters after your name! Very cool, very hot! The same can be said of almost any situation — a holiday with friends, a birthday dinner, a family gathering, a work event. You can find gratitude for something in all these life moments that is so much bigger than having a good picture of yourself.
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I also suggest finding a photographer you like and investing in having a couple of nice photos taken. They don’t have to look professional — you could ask her to come to your home to take them. Find someone you feel comfortable with and be honest about not feeling like the camera captures you as you appear in reality. With the right photographer and light and enough time to try things out, you’ll get a natural image that reflects how you know you look. This might sound like a waste of time and money but I think the contrary — if you bank a couple of photos you feel totally fine about, you don’t have to panic about getting a good one any more. You can use them if you ever need a headshot for work and post them on a dating profile if you choose to try the apps again. (You don’t have to. And by the way, even women with the fittest photos don’t have a great time on them.)
• Dolly Alderton on heartbreak, therapy and how to think like a man
Another tip — let people take photos of you and don’t look at them on the day. Don’t go through the photos on WhatsApp, don’t look at what you’ve been tagged in. Or try buying a film camera and take lots of pictures, including ones with you and your friends, and develop it in a year’s time. I don’t know why this is, but the passing of time makes average photos seem lovely and bad ones become funny. Try to find them funny. Share them with your best friend and she’ll send hers too. It will feel liberating.
And finally, remember this: photos don’t capture a whole person. Someone’s unique essence is not in a posed, 2D image. It’s in the way they speak and move and smell and hold themselves. No one falls in love with a static, silent image. In your longer letter you said you worry the mirror is lying. Trust me — it isn’t.
Dolly Alderton’s new novel, Good Material, about relationships and heartbreak, is out on November 9, and on the same day, Dolly will be answering your questions about heartbreak on Instagram
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To get your life dilemma answered by Dolly, email or send a voice note to deardolly@sundaytimes.co.uk or DM @theststyle
