I saw the outfit in the back of the closet and it cracked me up. I hadn’t worn it in months.
Clothes. Apparently they give off a vibe. I wasn’t aware of the vibe. I thought they were just New York Lerner and Old Navy attire. Simple blacks, blues, and grays. Kind of a Meg-Ryan–You’ve-Got-Mail wardrobe, but with a lot of short sleeves. It was California. But these were not just clothes, these were vibe givers.
Now as you can tell I not a Project Runway kind of chick. People spend two hundred dollars on one outfit or one purse. I’d rather spend that money on luxury box seats to a game or concert. Maybe an awesome helicopter adventure. But on clothes … not so much. They were work clothes and worked sucked. I didn’t need to look fancy great, I just needed to look clean and neat.
Why the not-so-fancy attitude?
Back in the day I was a middle school substitute teacher. Thrilling, I know. I had a regular school where I was often called on for special assignments, like state testing, library, or dean’s office. Now while I was there I realized that there were three kinds of teachers at that school. The ones rocking high-heels with suits, the ones sporting the New York Lerner Style, and the ones who thought casual Friday happened five days a week, with their wrinkled clothes, ragged jeans, and flip-flops.
You got to know these people pretty well if you had a regular assignment. And I did. During these on-going months I got to know the entire staff, the walkie-talkie people, the coordinators, and a few teachers. I made lunch friends.
However even if they’re your lunch friends, you don’t get into your personal life right away. You sort of ease into it. So for months I hadn’t mentioned that I had a boyfriend. It just never came up in conversation and no one really asked me, until I heard about the “If-you-had-to-go-out-with-somebody-from-school-who-would-it-be game.”
I had never heard of this game, but apparently it was played often when alcohol was involved. Something the teachers and coordinators did regularly.
Now apparently my name had come up a few times and I was completely unaware of this secret I’d-go-out-with-the-Guat game, until I was asked to go out for drinks with the girls. There we were hanging out and then I was finally asked in a nonchalant kind of way if I was attached. I had mentioned that I was seeing someone.
“What’s her name?” They asked.
“Her name? What do you mean?”
“Um … Nothing. I meant his name.”
I told them his name and we chatted a bit more had a few drinks and then went on our way.
A few weeks later I asked one of the teachers at the girls night out why they had asked me if I was dating a chick.
“We just thought you were playing for the other team.”
“Oh. Why would you think that?” I said feeling like Jerry Seinfeld in his ever so popular not-that-there’s-anything-wrong-with-that skit.
“I guess you just gave off a vibe.”
“A vibe?”
“Yeah the way you dress with your outfits, always hanging around with the girls, and the fact that you never mentioned a dude this whole time. You were sort of on the ‘gay-dar’… but still a mystery.”
I was surprised. I didn’t know I was giving off any type of vibe. I thought clothes were just clothes. But I thought it was funny. I’d never been an object of affection. A hot object of affection …
“Yeah when CiCi found out you didn’t play for her team she was a little disappointed.”
“Why? What’d she say?”
“When we told her you had a boyfriend she stood quiet for a moment and then shook her head and said ‘Oh the whole gay community is going to take a moment of silence on that one.'”
All of this due to a wardrobe malfunction. Who would have thought it … Old Navy? Hmph. I thought clothes were just clothes.