Social media reality

As I’m typing this, I have one hand on my laptop (with an ever temperamental screen) and my other on my phone, scrolling Instagram and going green with envy at all the people on there who have the perfect lifestyle, the perfect relationship, the perfect body… yada.. yada.. yada.

Only, their lives aren’t perfect. They probably don’t have the perfect relationship, and they probably don’t have the perfect body either. My surgeon once managed to ‘push in’ my pultruding hip by manipulating my spine (the cause of said pultruding hip, scoliosis you bitch) in to such an agonisingly painful position that my hip ‘moved’ back to where it should be. And as I stood there, barely able to breathe from the pain and nearly going beetroot from exertion on every muscle in my body, I realised that I too could have the perfect body – if I became a contortionist and took my spinal surgeon everywhere with me to get me in to that ‘perfect posing position’.

The truth is, I would never have Vogue’s definition of the ‘perfect body’, nor would I probably have the majority of Instagram’s definition of the ‘perfect body’ either – but it’s been through a lot, and it’s still working (just) and is allowing me to continue to do things which make me happy (just).

Today, I ate Weetabix for breakfast, KFC for lunch and yet more chicken and potatoes for dinner. In between then, I ate chocolate biscuits, yoghurts and drank copious amounts of sugary tea. Would I put this on my fitness social media accounts? Hell no. Would I put up my bit of exercise for the day? Why hell yes.

And that, case in point, is the very definition of social media reality. Did I want people to see me being healthy doing exercise? Yes sir. Did I want them to see the exhaustive list of junk food I ate today? No sir. Did I post the latter? Absolutely not. Why? Because it didn’t fit in with the ‘lifestyle’ I wanted to show to the world. If I do it, you can bet your bottom dollar that I am not alone in it; so the next time you sit and scroll through Instagram whilst devouring a buttery croissant and a hot chocolate, sighing at all the pretty men and women on there, do yourself a favour and realise that no one can refuse a buttery croissant and hot chocolate every once in a while too x