The Gaze of the Other

[Magical Realist]

Sartre defined the gaze of the other as the perspective on our bodies held by the looking of other people. In this act of objectification, our originary and wholly subjective "being for ourselves" is stolen and interrupted. We immediately become as we are seen by and performed for this outer gaze upon us. Lacan otoh posits the gaze of the other as part of our own being. It is we he says that project the gaze of the other all around us, as demonstrated in such states as narcissism and paranoia. We are experienced as selves precisely in the mode of the observed object of the other. We carry the essence of otherness as diametrical to selfness inside our very own consciousness..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhqFzG05X5E&t=401s

[confused2]

A (deliberate) misquote from a Robert Burns poem - "God give us the grace to see ourselves as others see us". Having mastered that step the next hurdle is to be able to make people see us as we want to be seen. At best it will work for some of the people some of the time. Trump is a spectacular example - some see a great leader of mankind and others see a vain and dishonest old man (FWIW I fall in the latter category).

[Magical Realist]

Having been afflicted with body dysmorphia since my awkward teen years I never got used to the gaze of the other, which led to an irradicable performance/social anxiety all thru my life. But as I age I see thru my own exaggerated self-consciousness and now realize that most people simply don't see the flaws in my appearance that I think they do. So sure am I of this that I often find the whole idea of some objective me with such and such static traits somewhat mythical and self-serving, as if I exist as this one physical thing and nothing more.