It might be where you and I diverge, he said. Maybe, I said.

I look in the mirror and it doesn't bother me. Alone, I am at peace with my face. I know that face, and I would not know how to wear a different one. I like to think that, at least occasionally, the mirror provides an accurate reflection. Alone, undisturbed by voluntary or involuntary comparison and competition; next to another, one's features - and expressions, and traits, and behaviours - are distorted, exaggerated, diminished;

standing next to someone tall, I am short; next to someone slim, I am broad. Attempting to fall asleep near another, I am restless and tightly wound; movement and breath restrained.

Alone I am none of these things. That face in the mirror is not anxious or troubled; it's not even fat or discoloured. It's merely mine.