People who know me know that I live in jeans and tee shirts. Those are my comfort clothes, and I have never grown out of them. That said, I do like to dress up. Sometimes I do it for special occasions. Other times, as this past Saturday, I do it just because I can. Maybe it's because of my own predilection for fancy dress, but I find that I am prejudiced against people who refuse to dress up when the social occasion calls for it.
In the past, when I would go out with a woman, we would only very rarely do anything that required fancy dress. We'd eat at casual restaurants, or go out to assorted nightclubs. The dress code (if indeed there was one) was casual. I'd usually wear jeans, but I always wore a button-down shirt. ALWAYS. I'm a big one for trying to coordinate outfits. A couple need not dress exactly alike, but they should at least dress complimentary to one another.
Working a hotel on the weekends, I see all kinds of people coming from bars or clubs late at night. It never ceases to amaze me how some "gentlemen" dress to go out of doors. All the time, I see women dressed to the nines: dress, heels, bling, and scent of some sort. Invariably, their male companions are wearing jeans and tee shirts. It kills me inside. Just this morning I checked in a couple who were coming from a Sunday night out. She was wearing club wear: a tight vest over a tight tank with "formal shorts". Naturally she was wearing pointy-toed pumps with stiletto heels, and she had rings on every finger, multiple ear piercings and bangles on both wrists. Her friend wore baggy jeans with a tee and a ball cap. *Sigh.* I wanted to say something, but I bit my tongue.
To have spent a lifetime included with this unspeakable half of society has been deeply hurtful and not conforming to their standards of slobdom has made me stand out like a sore thumb.
ReplyDeleteAnd how you can ache inside to see the female half of society able to wear anything they like for the sheer pleasure of playing with form colour and texture but know that there are strict limits as to how far you go before you get labelled a freak.
Life just aint fair, Caroline.
I love that this annoys you.
ReplyDeleteI dated someone casually for about a year. He loved the fact I was a "pin up" type of girl...always in a dress with stockings and heels. Getting ready for him was very time consuming and yet, he never did the same for me. He would always be slouchy and soon I began to resent it. Maybe that's why we only dated casually...