Hey y'all. In the process of continually thinking about everything, I've come to muse on a species reversal that seems to be going on. You know how the peacock male is much more splendid-looking than its female counterpart. This is consistent with many other species, where the male specimen has more or brighter colors. And then we have the human male, who is, compared to the human female, far less colorful and bright. Women care much more about wearing different colors and dressing "correctly" than men seem to.
But then I started thinking about things. That's just Western culture. Korean guys wear bright colors, and probably Japanese guys, as well as guys from Africa or tropical cultures. It's just western guys that are offended by colors. And not to their benefit, either.
Before I explain, let's talk about women. Women consistently dress up, and are expected to keep up with fashion. Scott Adam, author of the Dilbert comic, explained this in one of his books by saying that men are in control of fashion, making women dress up for them. This is cute, but untrue. Women don't dress up for men, at least not most of the time (and when they do, generally not in outfits they'd wear in public).
Women dress up because we expect each other to. When I was a nerdy teenager, was it the guys that made fun of me for not caring about fashion? Nope. It was the girls. They laughed at me, and the nicer ones volunteered to take me shopping. Guys? They didn't say one word about what I wore. And today it's fairly obvious that it's women who care about keeping up with fashion. Men don't idolize what famous men wear, unless they expect that the outfit comes with the job; a guy who wants to be an athlete wants to wear the fashionable suit not just to look fashionable, but to show his status as a guy who makes a lot of money. Similarly, the guy who sags is trying to look like a thug. He doesn't care that all the women around him think his sagging is unattractive, because he's not trying to impress them. Either that or he doesn't realize it's unattractive.
There are men who are in the fashion realm, but they don't do so to make women look attractive, but rather to express themselves artistically. It's actually the same for female designers, too. Designers are concerned about their vision, and when they care about the opinions of others, they care either as an artist is nervous about his work, or as someone trying to adapt fashion without going too far out there. Or as a business person trying to make money. It's not a matter of making the woman or man wearing the clothes more attractive to their counterpart.
Something to notice about this is that men, in surveys, generally tend to think that women are most attractive in T-shirts. They don't care too much about women practically killing themselves just to look a certain way. They want women who are confident and take care of themselves, but they don't have to look like a magazine to be attractive.
All of this information piles together to build a truth: it's more important for men to dress up than the woman. If us women care so much about fashion, then obviously we're attracted to men who care about it. A woman can get away with a T-shirt, apparently, but women expect more. Even being a nerd, I think guys in suits are hot. Suits can do a lot to a man to make him look groomed and good. I'm not dating a guy that sags. I want a dude who cares enough about fashion to know what he looks good in. Yeah, I know that makes me a hypocrite because I'm such a nerd, but at least I'm not going for a metro guy.
So, in any case, guys, if you really want a girl, try. You don't have to try a lot, but women will notice your efforts.
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