"Stop gawking at yourself" a bit of explanation here?
I came across this sentence while reading Joyce Carol Oates' "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been", and I confess I'm a little prickly bit confused: how does that phrase construction really works? Given that "gawking" means something much more similar to "flabbergasted" than anything else.

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To gawk at someone means to stare at them too much, to the extent that it is inappropriate. There is a hint that a person who gawks looks a bit stupid while they are doing it as well. It is a negative thing. Gawking at one's self would be staring at yourself in the mirror so much that other people who see you wonder what is wrong with you, that sort of thing.

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The phrase "Stop gawking at yourself" means stop staring /Looking at yourself