The girl’s narcissism follows from an early craving to be looked at by others

Evidence

What astonishes Olivia are the promises she thinks she reads in this image in which she recognizes her childish dreams and which is herself; but the girl also cherishes in her carnal presence this body that fascinates her as if it were someone else’s. She caresses herself, she embraces the curve of her shoulder, the bend of her elbow, she contemplates her bosom, her legs; solitary pleasure becomes a pretext for reverie, in it she seeks a tender self-possession. For the boy adolescent, there is an opposition between love of one’s self and the erotic movement that thrusts him toward the object to be possessed: his narcissism generally disappears at the moment of sexual maturity. Instead of the woman being a passive object for the lover as for herself, there is a primitive blurring in her eroticism. In one complex step, she aims for her body’s glorification through the homage of men for whom this body is intended; and it would be a simplification to say that she wants to be beautiful in order to charm, or that she seeks to charm to assure herself that she is beautiful: in the solitude of her room, in salons where she tries to attract the gaze of others, she does not separate man’s desire from the love of her own self. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 848 (#expands, via linked claim)

But narcissist drama plays itself out at the expense of real life; an imaginary personage solicits the admiration of an imaginary public; a woman tormented by her ego loses all hold on the concrete world, she does not care about establishing any real relationship with others; Mme de Staël would not declaim Phaedra so wholeheartedly if she had foreseen the mockeries her “admirers” noted that night in their notebooks; but the narcissist refuses to accept she can be seen other than as she shows herself: this is what explains why, so busy contemplating herself, she totally fails to judge herself, and she falls so easily into ridiculousness. She no longer listens, she talks, and when she talks, she recites her lines. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1830 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Being visually seen and commented on makes the girl’s body an object to herself. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 738; The girl needs another consciousness to fulfill herself beyond solitary self-adoration — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 866; The girl’s vanity and jealousy arise from worth hinging on others’ approbation (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• The adolescent girl fuses narcissistic self-love with desire for male admiration #expands (0.90) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 848
• Self-contemplation replaces genuine relationship and blinds the narcissist to how others see her. #expands (0.80) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1830
• The girl learns to view herself through an imagined collective male gaze #qualifies (0.75)