Last week, I was having dinner with my girlfriend when she told me, “You know, nobody wears T-shirts tucked in. You look like a freak. Just untuck it.”
I tried to explain. “But if I do that, my stomach touches my belt buckle.”
She failed to understand. “So what?”
“The buckle’s metal,” I sheepishly replied. “It’s cold.” At which point she sighed in exasperation.
Suspend your disbelief for a moment - I actually do have a girlfriend. It’s common sense that you cannot fundamentally change your partner, but it’s equally common sense that you can effect some superficial changes. In my case, it’s the way I dress.
I’ve always been a bit of a strange dresser. When I was young, I had a pathological fear of jeans, so I wore sweatpants. I had a whole collection of sweatpants in different colors, and I wore them constantly. It didn’t matter what else I was wearing; I saw nothing wrong in wearing a dress shirt with a nice pair of teal sweatpants.
Thankfully, that only lasted until I was 10 or so, at which age my sartorial philosophy was informed by what I call “The Astronaut Rule.” I wore whatever made me feel like an astronaut.
Houston, we have a nimrod. I would clomp down halls in moon boots, ski gloves and snow pants in the middle of October, mumbling to an imaginary mission control about my exploration of the planet Rodney B. Wilson Middle School. I would buy enormously complicated backpacks and, in order to complete the fantasy, fill them with all of my books and trudge around. The more straps and buckles my clothes had, the farther into space I imagined myself, and the farther from any kind of social life I found myself.
To a small extent, “The Astronaut Rule” is still with me, manifesting itself in the purchase of ridiculous armband radios and cell phone headsets. Ever since high school, though, I’ve pretty much settled on the least-effort-possible wardrobe.
Every man on Earth is familiar with the least-effort-possible wardrobe as a part of a larger least-effort-possible mode of living. The same impulse that drives me to toss my jacket on the nearest chair and leave milk in my fridge until it’s steak moves me to throw on a clean T-shirt and jeans every day and think I’m perfectly attired for an evening at the opera. Moreover, as I’ve lost weight and begun exercising, the T-shirts have grown smaller and smaller until I’ve started to look like I’m wearing my little sister’s hand-me-ups.
My color palette reflects this laziness as well. I realize I’m giving away one of the secrets of my gender when I say I don’t wear black because I’m brooding and cynical I wear black because it goes with everything and because if I spill something on it it’s not likely to show. I don’t think I’m the only one using this reasoning. It’s epidemic amongst grad students, and I suspect the entire Goth movement is predicated on the same idea, founded by people who are not so much gloomy romantics as they are messy eaters who are fond of sloppy joes.
I’ve lately expanded my repertoire to include a pair of overalls, which are phenomenally comfortable and convenient until I have to go to the bathroom, in which case they turn into the Gordian knot, wrought in denim. Nevertheless, I persist in wearing them, primarily because they remind me of an astronaut’s flight suit.
So, at 23, that’s where I stand: in black T-shirts and jeans, day after day after day, occasionally punctuated by a pair of overalls. Every day, looking equally ridiculous and pitiable.
My determination to look like an idiot has been met with some resistance.
My mother, to her credit, has striven for many years to neutralize the stupidity of my clothing. Every birthday and Christmas, I receive lovely, fashionable sweaters, shirts and trousers, and they usually all end up in the closet. If I can’t be bothered to wear a shirt I have to button up, there’s little hope of my wearing pants that have to be ironed every time I wash them. For all of her kindness and taste, she’s been unsuccessful.
In the beginning, my girlfriend managed to look past the stupid clothing. Underneath, she saw a moron, true, but a malleable moron, a moron she could mold and shape into someone with whom she could be seen in public without having to walk 15 feet behind.
At first, she tolerated the way I looked, lulling me into a false sense of security. She likes all of me, I thought, “Astronaut Rule” and all. Wrong.
It started innocuously: She bought me a shirt, a very nice T-shirt, perfectly in line with the least-effort-possible ideology, which I then started wearing assiduously. As I grew comfortable in it, I thought she knew and shared my taste.
When she suggested we go shopping together, then, I agreed. Winding throughout the mall, she revealed my taste as being nonexistent, but in fewer words, and directed me to stores and items of clothing. By the end of the trip, I had shirts that came dangerously close to being high-maintenance clothing and that weren’t black. In addition, I’d picked up jeans that weren’t tight enough to constrict my circulation - a new experience for me, and one to which I owe any children I might have in the future.
It’s been downhill ever since. My girlfriend, in collaboration with my friend, Joel, a Gap employee, have taken over the way I look. Bright colors, untucked shirts, trousers and shaving regularly - my daily life has turned into so much work. It’s not so bad, actually. For once, I’m able to sit on a park bench without people putting money into my coffee cup. My girlfriend’s happy, my mother’s happy, and I’m not looking too bad, if I do say so myself.
But, I swear to God, I’m buying a pair of cowboy boots before the new year.
Rishi Kundi is The State News’ graduate columnist. His column appears every other Wednesday. He can be reached at kundiris@msu.edu.
