![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I am a work in progress, as are most people. I'm always learning new things. I geek out about clothing and have for a number of years now. It nearly coincided with my entry into fandom, but that is not what caused it.
When I was in high school I was deathly afraid that I might be accused of being gay. Being a slender geek without much defense against bullying and I knew at some level that somehow being very thin was somehow associated with being gay. So I tried very hard not to be effeminate. I wore only guy colors like black, green, gray, and blue. I didn't even like to wear anything with a pattern. And most of my clothing was rather too large for me and I hoped it would hide how thing I was. I probably actually made me look like a beanpole holding up a size large tent.
And I continued wearing my plain button down twill shirts and slightly too short slacks right into my brief foray into college and then at the beginning of my time in fandom. But while in college I'd been exposed to a new thing, the internet. And I'd seen things there. Naked guy things. And after much trepidation and hesitation I met with a gay guy. That was right before I found fandom. I came out a few months after I joined fandom in about May 1999. But my choices in clothing and political party continued to be the same, unexamined, for around another year, I think. I was attracted to a certain sort of guy. Rather well dressed in a very gay way and one day I had a sort of revelation. "Here I am, gay. That's what I was afraid of being called all these years. Now I admit it openly. Why am I afraid to look like one of the guys I am attracted to?"
It was not as articulate as that. And it was not like there were never backsliding or times when I would dress more conservatively. But that is essentially why I dress and look the way I do. I decided I wanted to look like the sort of guy I found attractive. And it is also why I go on about geek clothing choices. My fellow straight geeks are not going to get the same very direct epiphany moment of, "Hey, maybe I should do my best to look like a person I'd want to date." Not to say they cannot, but we can all be a bit clueless at times as geeks. And in actually exploring fashion rather than just dismissing it without knowing as, "Frivolous bunk not worth a real man's time" I've learned a lot about the practical side of clothing.
Not only how to be more comfortable, but how to look my best with what I've got. And I want to share it. So this is part of me being a geek and it is also something I think that other geeks should know a certain minimal amount about. My first love isn't computers, but I know enough to work with one. It is the same thing with clothing. We need it or it is required, why not use it to our best advantage.
Okay, that's my speech.
When I was in high school I was deathly afraid that I might be accused of being gay. Being a slender geek without much defense against bullying and I knew at some level that somehow being very thin was somehow associated with being gay. So I tried very hard not to be effeminate. I wore only guy colors like black, green, gray, and blue. I didn't even like to wear anything with a pattern. And most of my clothing was rather too large for me and I hoped it would hide how thing I was. I probably actually made me look like a beanpole holding up a size large tent.
And I continued wearing my plain button down twill shirts and slightly too short slacks right into my brief foray into college and then at the beginning of my time in fandom. But while in college I'd been exposed to a new thing, the internet. And I'd seen things there. Naked guy things. And after much trepidation and hesitation I met with a gay guy. That was right before I found fandom. I came out a few months after I joined fandom in about May 1999. But my choices in clothing and political party continued to be the same, unexamined, for around another year, I think. I was attracted to a certain sort of guy. Rather well dressed in a very gay way and one day I had a sort of revelation. "Here I am, gay. That's what I was afraid of being called all these years. Now I admit it openly. Why am I afraid to look like one of the guys I am attracted to?"
It was not as articulate as that. And it was not like there were never backsliding or times when I would dress more conservatively. But that is essentially why I dress and look the way I do. I decided I wanted to look like the sort of guy I found attractive. And it is also why I go on about geek clothing choices. My fellow straight geeks are not going to get the same very direct epiphany moment of, "Hey, maybe I should do my best to look like a person I'd want to date." Not to say they cannot, but we can all be a bit clueless at times as geeks. And in actually exploring fashion rather than just dismissing it without knowing as, "Frivolous bunk not worth a real man's time" I've learned a lot about the practical side of clothing.
Not only how to be more comfortable, but how to look my best with what I've got. And I want to share it. So this is part of me being a geek and it is also something I think that other geeks should know a certain minimal amount about. My first love isn't computers, but I know enough to work with one. It is the same thing with clothing. We need it or it is required, why not use it to our best advantage.
Okay, that's my speech.