Feeling Shit

So I'm a pretty vain guy. Not pathologically I'd say, but definitely consistently aware of myself. A healthy egotist. And grindr is changing that. Having had an account for a rough fortnight, I'm already feeling inadequate.  

There are defined leagues or 'tribes', and in spite of myself I want to be top shelf! Functional ego is transforming into something else. 

I've never been in with, and have even quietly resented those new age neo-Buddhist camps declaring war on ego. Egoless-ness, an idealised absence of self-interest, sounds like a hell-state to be in. It's demonisation is explicable only in terms of massive self-loathing. 

Those same types would probably argue the value of community over consumerist self-obsession and brut, individual-centred competition. I don't see how community is possible without being comprised of healthy egos, as any community exists by way of a collective narrative which needs its aggregates to be sufficiently self-aware, lest the story they're telling themselves to sustain their affiliation become something automatic and compulsive, slave to precedent etcetera. I'm talking about intersubjectivity as the generative kernel of true community.

So there I've justified my medium-level vanity as a symptom of healthy ego. 

I feel like grindr is promoting an anti-social image obsession, which would be the opposite of ego serving the good of any community, least of which an online community of horny fags. 

I don't have the kind of six pack you'd start automatic payments to see via webcam a few times a week, nor would I feel comfortable jamming proud dick-pics down every casually begun chat. So what's my lure?

I guess I'm just mourning the loss of 'presence', and how persuasive/charming I at least think I can be in person.