Anyway, how can you say things like that? You don't know me at all." She wasn't really caught up in this game, but she was enjoying it, as she had enjoyed the dozens of declarations that had been made to her since she was eleven. Her earliest memories were of being told how beautiful she was. Something in her never believed the words, never felt satisfied. It wasn't modesty; it was a craving for more proof than anyone had ever yet given her. Her mind worked constantly at trying to understand for herself exactly what other people saw when they looked at her. She could never grasp it whole and living. Her deepest fantasy was to step outside of her skin and look at herself and find out just what people were thinking about. She spent her life experimenting with people to see how she could make them react, as if, in their response, she could discover herself.
Judith Krantz, Scruples
self-love