I Thought Clothes Were Just Clothes

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.

image via nova.saisd.net

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.