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# Jeremy takes issue with the ideas in Self portraits because, to him it "suggests that there is one true story, one true self to be depicted in the self portrait."

He goes on to say that "we present different selves in different interactions."

I would not argue with this but feel that he has misunderstood the point I was trying to make.

We indeed have one story, our story, but it has many facets. We can present it in different ways and observe it from myriad different angles. We offer up different aspects of ourselves in different circumstances and when dealing with different people - that's not up for debate.

My point is that rather than telling it, in whichever form we choose, we instead focus on the story of others without giving our take. Or we sanitise and embellish, warp our offering, solely to appease our audience.

It's something I've been cognisant of, and written about, for almost as long as I've been using social networks:

"I can't help wondering if our normal behaviour is influenced by the online communities we join. Do we participate for ourselves or for others? Do we share things we like or things we think our followers will appreciate?" - 2008

Unfortunately, I've often fallen short which frustrates and annoys me.

Still, that's not to say that we can't weave aspects of other's stories into our own but we need to explain why. Why do we follow someone? Why did we share something and what do we think about it?

This is why I never used to follow accounts that curated endless links without adding any comment or value. They served no purpose for me; I want to know what you think!

So, I'm not saying that we can't divide our story, tell it from different points of view for different audiences.

But the portrait we do paint should be our own.