The deep end of the shoe pool

I was sitting at the bar a few months ago with a friend of mine and I said to him, "Have you ever seen a person and thought they were kind of cute and then looked at their shoes and just known it ain't gonna happen."

I was speaking at the time of a nice looking gal. She appeared at first glance to be down to earth and approachable. She had her mid-length brown hair pulled back into a pony tale. She wore a tank top and a pair of broken in jeans. She was carrying a small, but not terribly feminine purse, which I was completely willing to overlook until I saw her shoes.

I am capable of great moments of shallowness. I admit this openly. But I don't think that my burgeoning erection of desire to talk to her suddenly going flaccid had anything to do with being shallow. Here is why.

Her shoes spoke to me. Loudly. They said. "Uhm, yeah, just because I am in a gay bar, doesn't mean I like women. I am here with my gay male friends, who are the hottest guys here. All these lesbians disgust me. And although my drag queen friends are fabulous these little transmen need to go back to whatever fucking planet they came from and leave us normal straight women and gay men alone." In other words, they were toeless pumps, light colored, completely covered in rhinestones with toenails painted to match.

These are not the type of shoes one wears if they fear being chased and possibly beaten up for their gender identity. They are the type of shoes one wears when dancing, mindlessly, below the glass ceiling, trying to look pretty for the powerful men watching from above.

KC, my ex, has a very strong stance on judging people on the way they dress. I think this is a throw back to the days when the way people dressed spoke to their income level instead of their personal identity. It used to be that there were three dresses to choose from at the department store, the cheap one, the moderately priced one and the fucking expensive ass one. It was considered inappropriate to say mean things about a person wearing a differently priced dress from you because that would mean you were judging them based on how much money they had.

This argument seems a little off for the ultra-consumeristic world of 2006. First of all it assumes that everyone would buy the expensive dress if they could. Second, it assumes that class is insignificant. Third, when you modernize the situation - there are 2000 outfits to choose from at the nearest department store all of relatively equal quality - you must realize that people are making decisions about what to buy and wear not based on value, but because they are constructing a very precise message (albeit unconsciously) about how they would like other people to see them.

With this in mind I am completely unapologetic about dismissing potential mates and occasionally potential friends based on the way they present themselves. These decisions have very little to do with wealth. They have everything to do with gender, education, individualism, aesthetics, regionalism, etc.

Perhaps an example will help.

I am at the bar talking to two girls.

Person A is presenting herself thusly:
Long hair, pulled back. All women's clothes, but with less feminine cuts. Women's pumas. A women's watch. Shaved legs and armpits.

Person B:
Short hair, shaved. Dark glasses. Tight, 80's style boy jeans. Striped socks. A button down shirt. A women's designer beret. Cowboy boots. Shaved legs, hairy armpits.

I am going to have very different gender relationships with girls A and B. Either of them could be great or awful in the sack. But girl A is a lesbian as in she considers herself to be a woman who likes women and she isn't overly concerned with how she dresses. Her choices are within the normal realm for a female person. Girl B is a queer, a dyke, a punk. She purposefully wears clothing that questions normalcy and redefines her gender as an amalgamation of “male” and “female” stereotypes.

I could end up liking either one of these girls, but it would be silly to say that they might be the same person underneath the hair and cloth. Their differences are so pressing that these gals are compelled to physically present them for the world to see.

I have taken on occasion to wearing a soft pack or fake penis. I recommend that every gal do this at some time in her life. It is amazing just how differently it makes you feel about the world. Even a pair of socks shoved in your undies will work.

You realize immediately how being female affects the way you walk, talk, think, eat, smile, breath . . . This realization affords you the space and presence of mind to begin to pick and choose, consciously, which of those behaviors you wish to keep performing the way you do because they fit in with your ideals and personality and which ones you want to change because you act that way simply because you are a second class citizen.

At any rate, whatever you have in your underwear, and whether that underwear has a fly or not, perhaps you should take the time to really think about what it is you are saying about yourself with your clothing. After all, it may be you who is the shallow one.