Different for guys

I'm a jeans and tshirt sort of guy.  Typically.  Currently I'm more of a jeans and thermals and thermals and hoodie and beanie sort of guy.  The thought behind my fashion however, remains the same.  As little as possible.

I can't wear watches.  Bracelets.  Jewelry of any sort really.  I can't wear rings.  Even my wedding ring when I was married.  I lost it early on, never found it.  Never replaced it.  Adornments of all types...any type...really bug the shit out of me.

I did have a crystal necklace once.  I really liked it.  I wore it for a couple years.  Not because I had any particular care for "crystal energy" or because I thought it was pretty, or carried any charm or luck.  Nope.  That thing was my trophy.  I wore it as such.

It was the summer before my senior year.  I was at BYU for a huge week long...thingy...event of sorts.  I was there with a couple friends.  My best friend at the time had become quite infatuated with this cute little blond girl.  He had determined that by the end of the week he would have her phone number, mailing address, and the crystal necklace she was wearing.  I thought the whole thing quite ridiculous.  However...I was also young and much more impetuous than I've now become.  Challenge accepted.  While he was plotting, scheming, and working up the nerve to just go talk to her, I didn't hesitate.

I approached her.  Asked her name (which I no longer remember), and initiated conversation.  I asked her questions.  I made her laugh, and laughed at her jokes.  I complimented her necklace, and asked rather rashly if I could have it.  She agreed, but it would cost a kiss.   I paid the price, and dropped the silver chain over my head.  I will never forget the look of combined pain and frustration on my friends face.

The end of the week was a closing event dance.  I got together with her again that night.  I hate baseball.  I hate baseball metaphors.  I also have no idea what physical act constitutes what metaphorical base...but I got to one or another.  It certainly wasn't "the spirit"  I was feeling.  All that talk from all those church leaders about not engaging is sexual activity, sure makes you kinda want to. We agreed that night to NOT exchange numbers or addresses.  We made the youthful romantic ridiculous gesture that the week would serve its own purpose.

I wore that damn necklace every day for the next two or three years.  It was, as previously mentioned, my trophy.  One winter night I was car surfing (yeah it's exactly what you would imagine it is), and fell off the car.  The necklace broke.  After that, I lost interest in wearing it.  Haven't put on another one since.

That story has nothing to do with anything.  Simply something I remembered while bringing up how I don't/can't really wear any type of adornment.

So taking the VERY long way to get to an initial point.  My fashion is nil.  I have none to speak of.  I've been told I clean up rather nice, but I rarely have or take the opportunity.  Cover my naked body with whatever happens to be closest, and I'm good.  When a shirt needs replaced...I buy a new one.  It will also have no particular style.

So yeah.  I'm a jeans and tshirt kind of guy.  If you see me, odds are that's what I'll be wearing.  Or some very slight variation on that theme.

I work in a warehouse where there is no dress code.  No standard uniform.  As long as what I'm wearing doesn't offend someones fragile sensibilities, no one is going to say a word.

Same goes for pretty much everyone there.  We're all pretty much jeans and tshirt people.  At least in the warehouse.

There are also some women who work in the warehouse as well.  Guess what.  Jeans and tshirts.  Or for a lot of them...sweatpants.  Whatever.

So today one of my co-workers comes up to me, (jeans and tshirt) and...I shit you not...starts complaining that the girls there don't take more time to pretty themselves up more.

Oh thou hypocrite.

I wanted to laugh at him.
I wanted to smack him.
I wanted to ask him, what it was about me, that made him think I would care to have that conversation with him.
I simply pointed out to him that until he started wearing a suit and tie to work, he didn't have much room to talk.
His exact words were, "It's different for guys."

I sometimes wish I could punch antiquated misogyny right out of people.

It's different for guys.

I think I live on a different planet than everyone else.  It's my own planet to be sure, and I'm not saying its necessarily a good thing.  I know that mentality exists.  I know it.  I do.

But it's so foreign to me, it a purely academic knowledge.  I forget that people live in that world.  That guys...and unfortunately probably a lot of them...live in an Its Different For Guys sort of world.

You know, until he came up to me with his unwarranted opinions today, I had not given a single thought to how the girls at work should or shouldn't be dressing.  I talk with them.  I work with them.  I'm friendly with them.  I've never thought them more or less attractive based on what they were wearing, or if they had their face on, or their hair did.

FUCK THAT SHIT

Seriously.  Right in its beauty myth ass.

Now I don't consider myself a feminist.  In fact if there is an ist I must label myself as, it would be humanist.  It's conversations like this though, with guys like this, that so hit home, and reinforce why not only does feminism exist, but why it is absofuckinglutely necessary.

I think the most depressing thing to me, about that entire exchange, is that it wasn't some stuck in the 50's slap his secretary on the ass, lost in his generation old guy.  No. That I could have laughed off in an "Oh you relic you..." sort of way.  This was a kid.  Okay...I'm a bit older so perhaps I use that term a little liberally.  Mid twenties something though.  And not even typical frat boy.  Just a guy at work.  Young enough to know better, but...I guess honest enough with his own hypocrisy, to not even realize it as such.  And this was probably one of the most depressing discouraging little things I've experienced for a very long time.

I guess I live so much in my fantasy world, with more enlightened friends, that I forget this mentality not only exists...but has a certain prevalence.  I forget that there are guys out there who in their minds hold women to a certain standard in their own minds.  I forget that they exempt themselves from the same standard simply because during gestation, their other x chromosome grew a tail.  I forget that there are these seriously deluded fucktards that honestly believe they deserve more, for doing less.  I forget that this shit is real.  And sad.  And too a certain degree, very...very...dangerous.

I didn't do to him all the horrible things I imagined doing to him.  I did laugh at him.  I may or may not have told him he was a jackass.  He may or may not have though I was joking.  He laughed with me for a second, as though we were sharing a joke.
He asked if I didn't agree.
I simply told him...dude...there is not a single woman on this planet who is obligated in any single way to do any single thing, to, with, or for you.  Then I went back to work.

I don't think he gets what I meant.

I think he thinks I was the asshole.

This is the kind of guy that routinely refers to women as bitches.  That feels that if he paid for dinner, he's by rights, warranted a blow job.  That will never talk about a date, without mentioning how much it cost.

I marvel at how far we've not evolved.

I think I wasn't born to be a "guy".

Don't get me wrong...I love being male.  I'm even quite fond of many of the "guy" things, but...oh god but...

I'm just NOT that guy.

And I love our differences...but I don't want ANYTHING...

to be "different for guys".