Male Fashion

"Adelaide, a man doesn't want to feel like he's being cut up and sewn according to how they're wearing husbands this year!"

This line in Guys and Dolls must have been written by a man. It totally misses the point. Most women I know could care less about their partner's flaws. They've learned to deal with them. They minimize the occasions on which these flaws become readily apparent and they have to deal with them. Most males are oblivious as to the way they're being manipulated. Everyone's lives are easier under this system.

What the women do care about is how their partner is dressed. They have not learned to deal with what he thinks he should wear. They will not cut him up and wear him according to fashion but they will force him to wear the fashions. They are determined that he will wear the male fashions for this year. The males are not oblivious to this. They tend to resist which makes everyone's lives involved more difficult - including the innocent bystander.

For instance, I was out with friends the other week. As we were walking back, I was talking to one girl who proudly pointed at her boyfriend's pants. "Look," she said. "I got him to wear white pants." It was true. I hadn't noticed until she had pointed it out. I turned and said the required response, "You're good." I'm not sure why she wanted him to wear white pants but I knew it was a feat to have suceeded. "Well, he wanted to wear a dark top with it, but I told him no. You have to wear a light coloured top and dark shoes." I schooled my features quickly. I would have worn it with a dark top. I tried to remember the whole light, dark, top and bottom debate and the accompanying side debate about if it was acceptable to break fashion rules only if it was a deliberate choice. I nodded gravely and agreed that dark on top is a bad idea.

She is good. I have seen this man wear a pink shirt. It was a long battle until he finally gave in, as she tells the story. I was unsure whether my role on listening to the story was to dismiss the irrational male tendency to avoid pink or whether I was to congratulate her on getting him to be so daring. Then there was the whole shade issue. Was it the type of pink to ease him into the experience or had she dropped him at the deep end? The whole thing was highly subjective.

If you didn't hear the back stories, you would think that this man was a sharp dresser. Someone willing to push the boundaries of what is considered normal male attire in my circle. In reality, he has a girlfriend. She's cutting him up and making him wear fashion.