Fashion tips for the elderly male, Part 2
After writing about fashion sins committed by elderly males, I received over 140 comments, mostly from females suggesting other things guys should stop doing.
When I mentioned this explosion of feminine interest in male fashion fuck-ups to a female friend, she explained it this way: if she allowed her husband to go out in public looking like a homeless man who had just been thrown from a car moving at high speed it reflected poorly on her.
Same thing if she allowed her grandchild to go to school looking like a load of unwashed laundry.
When I pointed out that she had just put her husband in the same category as a six-year old, she had absolutely no problem with that.
So there you have it guys: women don’t care how we dress because it makes us look like idiots, they care how we dress because they’re afraid it will make them look like idiots.
You show up for dinner in cargo shorts, socks and sandals, sporting an earring and a greasy ponytail and every other woman in the restaurant looks at your significant other with scorn and thinks:
“So that’s the best she good do?”
Since our role is to prove a woman can get a man, and even more importantly a man that doesn’t look like he arrived by box car, here are some more things you guys might want to avoid.
Sandals, sandals, sandals
Despite the fact that the original article already dealt with sandals – a fashion no-no unless you’re a gladiator – numerous women mentioned them again.
Apparently, women really hate sandals.
Little known Biblical fact: Mary Magdalene was working on Jesus to switch over to a nice pair of wingtips, but he told her sandals were way more comfortable when power walking through the Sinai.
Jesus was a typical dude; he picked comfort over style.
Had Jesus split the difference and switched over to some Nike Cross-Trainers, history might have been rewritten. Pontius Pilate might have noticed Our Lord and Savior’s snazzy footwear and pardoned Jesus so they could go to the Jerusalem Foot Locker and pick out some Air Jordans.
Knee-high socks
Nope, not unless you get in a time machine, go back to the early 1970s and have a tryout with the Harlem Globetrotters. Should that unlikely sequence of events occur, you can also wear short shorts and an Afro the size of a beach ball.
Long fingernails
Long fingernails on a guy are way creepy so you want to avoid that look unless you’re a vampire. If you are a Creature of the Night, I apologize, but my apology only applies between dusk and dawn.
From dawn to dusk you can kiss my sun-loving ass; you look like a Fu Manchu wannabe.
Fanny packs
In the history of dudes not one of them ever got laid when he started the evening wearing a fanny pack, so you make the call. And if you wear the fanny pack so you can have your inhaler handy, that’s also a gettin’ busy deal breaker.
Velcro shoes
This one would not have occurred to me, but a female reader suggested it and I can take a guess as to why.
Wearing Velcro shoes indicates that you are:
A. So out of shape that bending over to tie shoe laces is out of your comfort zone, and/or…
B. No longer making an effort and didn’t consider this date worth bending over for a maximum of twenty seconds even though that’s what you’re going to ask her to do later in the evening.
You’re sending bad signals, dude.
Mismatched colors
I once read a study that said women will meet a guy and immediately start thinking about what their future might be like should they hook up long term.
I didn’t read a study that said so, but I firmly believe that given the opportunity Albert Einstein would bang a cocktail waitress and wouldn’t think five seconds beyond that. Most dudes think a long-term relationship means hanging around an extra 30 minutes after Taking Care of Business, if you know what I mean and I think that you do.
So what’s this have to do with mismatched clothes?
If you show up wearing a bowling shirt and tuxedo pants, the long-term thinking female pictures what a shithole her house will be when you drag that ratty-ass Lay-Z-Boy into the middle of her exquisitely designed living room.
So the choice is true love or a comfortable Lay-Z-Boy and that one is way too close for me to call.
Cell-phone holsters
Unless you’re in the Secret Service or have Bill Gates on speed dial, lose the cell-phone holster.
You’re not Matt Dillon and taking an extra second and a half to pull your cell phone out of your pocket where it’s been busy giving your right testicle cancer (TMI?) won’t make much difference in your life.
Cell phone holsters don’t make you look like a Captain of Industry; having some intern dweeb carry your cell phone makes you look like a Captain of Industry and if you can’t afford that just put your cell phone next to your crotch like the rest of us.
Half-glasses
Unless you’re trying out for the role of Bob Cratchit in a Christmas Carol, get rid of those half glasses; they make you look 110 years old and since the outer limits of some of the women on Match.com might be 107, you can’t afford those extra three years.
Glasses on a chain
Unfortunately, the sexy librarian look is only available to females. Of course this is sexist, but if we’re going to underpay women for their entire working careers, I guess we can give them this one.
Tucked-in shirt
A tucked in shirt reveals the true contours of your body which most of us guys can no longer afford. This is why God – AKA Ellen DeGeneres – invented dark; so women wouldn’t get a good look at what they’re about to get in bed with.
Like many other gay women, Ellen took a good look at what guys have to offer and decided there had to be something better out there.
Something to think about: if all the homophobic men in the world woke up one day and had been turned into women – a popular movie premise so it must be possible – they’d become lesbians.
What’s their other choice?
Baggy jeans
After a female friend informed me that I had “mashed potato butt” I went out and bought some tighter jeans. Unfortunately I still have “mashed potato belly” and a tighter shirt is only going to reveal the extent of the problem.
As Mike Myers used to say on Saturday Night Live: “I’m working on it!”
See-through tank tops
Once you pass your 30th birthday, nobody wants to see what gravity has done to your body, especially if you’re as hairy as a Bulgarian Greco Roman wrestler.
(My apologies to Bulgaria if your wrestlers aren’t actually hairy, but that’s the image that came to mind so I’m going to blame the people who promote Bulgaria’s image to the rest of the world – they’ve clearly got work to do.)
Gold chains and bracelets
Unless your name is Tony Montana and you want us to meet your “little friend” lose the chains and the shirt you unbuttoned to the navel so we could see those chains. Keep in mind that Tony dies at the end and if memory serves he was shot by Michelle Pfeiffer who was sick of Tony’s wardrobe choices.
Man-buns
This is not a hairstyle often seen on elderly males, but it’s a hairstyle that shouldn’t be seen at all. Trust me guys, 20 years from now you’re going to cringe when you see pictures of yourself looking like a samurai without a sword.
And yes, that double entendre was intentional.
Men vs. women/convenience vs. effort
After spending two days examining what women don’t like about the way men dress, I think I’ve spotted a pattern: guys do what’s convenient and comfortable and women don’t like that.
And when you think about it, they have a point.
I’ve never worn high heels, a thong, skin tight jeans, a push-up bra, fake eyelashes and earrings the size of chandeliers, but I can’t imagine that shit is comfortable. So when guys show up wearing whatever qualified as the least dirty shirt they own, women get pissed.
They made an effort and you didn’t.
So next time you go out to dinner and your female companion is wearing an uncomfortable outfit that nevertheless makes her look like a million bucks, remember: she didn’t dress that way to please herself.
She dressed that way to make other women in the restaurant jealous.
Try not to fuck that up for her.