>>> The Rollercoaster of Drama
By staff writer Simonne Cullen

March 31, 2008

When you’re in a relationship, it’s best to be honest right up front. That includes letting your boyfriend know when his clothing sucks.

Sure there are different ways to go about dropping bombs, like the fact that your partner’s breath stinks in the morning (“Go brush your goddamn teeth it smells like you pooped out your mouth!”) or that their sheets may need a good washing (“Is that a period stain on your comforter? Fucking gross!”), but what I have noticed over the years is that girlfriends don’t even need to make the wardrobe makeover a big issue. Through the online photographic history of my friends, also known as Facebook photo albums, I have found that over the course of a relationship the ladies almost always manage to slowly but surely transform their boyfriend’s attire from “Grateful Dead roadie” to “stylish, functional member of society.” Somewhere between American Eagle and J. Crew, maybe even Brooks Brothers, if he can live with himself knowing that he paid $120 for a pullover.

“Guys, your woman will slowly change you into a better dressed version of yourself.”

Right now all I see are Spring Breakers on my plane and I find that when it comes to fashion, we’re still the same as we were in college: fucking clueless. I see mismatched material (a wool sweater with linen pants); I see pit stains on guys and chicks; and I see flip flops on people en route to Aspen for a ski weekend.

But mostly, I see men wearing ridiculously tight jeans.

Seriously, it looks like these men put on a normal pair of jeans, stuck a vacuum in their crotch and sucked all the excess air and space out, leaving a normal-looking man from the torso up and Nicky Hilton wrapped in blue cellophane from the waist down. It’s such a disappointment when you can’t even eye fuck a hot guy because he’s got circus show jeans on that are so tight you want to whip a quarter at his head and scream, “Thanks for the show ya freak!”

I just don’t understand where the vacuumed jean look came from. I don’t see any of the leading men in the movies wearing them. We’ve all seen the Indiana Jones and Iron Man trailer—neither Ford nor Downey were fighting the Nazis or Taliban in spandex jeans. How unattractive would it be to see all the doctor’s on Grey’s Anatomy wear their scrubs sucked to their McCalves? Or Tiger Woods winning the PGA tour with his nutsack flattened out completely in Nike suction hakis? No way! They’re all rocking looser, yet still fitted, equally proportioned combos. What’s even more of an oddity is that all of these movies are filmed in LA where this horrendous trend of vacuumed denim-wearing began.

I started to see it on the Sunset Strip when I lived there. Mostly at the record store where I would see black denim-wearing emo rejects flip through old copies of The Majestic Fields… with their fucking eyeliner and colorful array of mutilating piercings decorating their one hole-free face. The guys I hung out with were starving artists/directors who purchased their pants at Goodwill, and even then they were stained slightly but never ridiculously twig and berries restrictive.

So back to the point of this article. Guys, when you start dating someone, it’s only natural that over time your woman will slowly change you into a better dressed version of yourself. Sure you may still be the same loud, obnoxious, piss-on-yourself drunk, but at least now you’re hanging your head over the toilet donning Ralph Lauren—it adds a bit more class to the situation when your collar is popped.

Maybe it’s the reflection of my age and maturity (I turn 25 at the end of the month), but I’ve said it before so I’ll say it again: I don’t want to have to spruce up a guy’s wardrobe. If he’s a fixer-upper, then it shouldn’t be his appearance or kissing style that needs a new coat of paint, it should be something that’s fun to work with, like sex. The only way you can improve that is by having more of it. No girl wants someone who dresses poorly but is amazing in the sack, because then you can never take him out in public and all you’re left with is your very own on-call, poorly-clothed gigolo.

I mean, it shouldn’t be hard to tell someone that they need to make a change in their style without them getting all offended. After consulting my girlfriends who have had success in this delicate area, they said they just bought new clothes for their guy and he kind of got the hint.

But what about the ones who don’t? What about the stubborn ones who think they’re style is fine the way it is? What if they don’t like the clothes that aren’t suctioned to their body? Then what do you do? “Who’s wearing vacuum denim?” they ask. “The entire state of California!” Well you’re not dating those guys so what does it matter? If I see one I’ll just toss my hard-earned quarter at him and move on.



Relationship Update

As you may remember, back in January a friend of mine started seeing an elusive banker by day/DJ by night and the two professed their love for each other after 11 days. Well, they are now engaged. Three months engaged! I will keep you abreast of any further detail concerning their nuptials.

Meanwhile, in Normalsville I had been seeing someone but it ended on St. Patrick’s Day….when he met my college friends…and discovered the true meaning of Team Hilarious. Unable to handle it, I was “let go,” which is fine by me because it’s called Team Hilarious for a reason. If it wasn’t, we’d be Team Organized or Team Sober…or Team Sensitive Pants.

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