She Got the Look

People think I look good and based entirely on that fact, they assume I'm a judgy bitch who will drag them or hate on them for not being one of the beautiful people themselves. This has made me crazy my entire life.  
When I met the future ex, he looked like something out of Revenge of the Nerds. After we became an item, I took him shopping and got him a haircut and put a stop to that.

I didn't care all that much how he dressed. But it bothered him how people perceived him and I knew how to fix it, so I did.

A recent post here made me feel like I am finally getting to the heart of the matter. It makes the observation that my mother treated me like a pretty little doll to dress up and she was always doing things like curling my hair.

I objectively know more than most people about clothing and photography and visual presentation of material and various subjects pertinent to dressing well and looking good, but it's not because I'm vain or care deeply about that stuff.

My mother cared deeply about clothing. I care deeply about social issues and see clothes as a tool to help further gender equality.

I'm not someone who thinks clothes doesn't matter. It does matter -- because how people perceive us has significant consequences.

I'm a social creature and dressing in a way that helps navigate social things is just one piece of the puzzle. I'm also generally polite, respectful, know something about talking with people in an effective manner and probably a bunch of other stuff pertinent to going over well with other people.

But my ideas about clothing and my interest in clothing aren't what most people imagine they are and I feel like I talk until I'm blue in the face and it falls on deaf ears.

You people have heard of makeover videos and makeover articles. If you have seen even one such thing, you should know professional wardrobe people and professional hairstylists and makeup artists don't take one look at a person, go "Oh. My. God. The horror! Sorry, I can't help you. You're hopeless!"

They know how to dress a busty, plump girl to make her look smoking hot, how to completely change your hair to flatter your face and how to do make up on people to make them look good though they currently look terrible and ugly.

So I mean obviously these people look at you and see something you don't see. That's obvious on the face of it and should go without saying.

You see "fat and ugly." They see, "Well, she could stand to lose a few pounds, but I'll stuff her into this gown and get her into that wig and have her looking like Mae West in short order."

Yes, I'm a former homemaker and never managed to have a serious career. That doesn't mean that what I know about looking good is because I'm vain.

It's just information I have been immersed in my whole life.

And not because that was my obsession. My mother was constantly lightening my hair because she likes me blonde, curling my hair, sewing me cute outfits, buying me cute clothes.

I stood for fittings and cooperated in letting her do my hair, but I rarely shopped for clothes or fussed with my hair myself.

As an adult, I have never worn much makeup, stopped using heated hair styling tools years ago and the older I get, the less I do in that regard. 

My son told me one day "No, you don't like shopping for clothes. Your sister does, but you don't."

In recent years, my default method for buying clothes is visually identify the color and style I want and check the size and price tag, pay for it and take it home without trying it on.

Would that work for dressing up for a gala event? No. But for my daily life, that's worked for a lot of years, including when I had to meet business casual dress code at a Fortune 500 company.

I'm not a snob. I'm also not going to intentionally dress ugly when I know what works.

I know other people see I have a serious interest in clothes and imagine I'm vain, shallow, judgy, interested in being the most beautiful evil bitch at the top of this dog eat dog, Lord of the Flies shit pile.

I'm not. I'm trying to destroy our current dysfunctional culture by planting the seeds of something better.

I don't expect to succeed. I expect to die on the street in the near future, hated to death by the COUNTLESS people who hang their shit on me and don't confuse them with the facts.

And it's probably a hopeless cause anyway because every single industry where visuals can be played up has gone absolutely to hell in the same manner and for the same reasons that HGTV was born as an ode to This Old House -- as free education for middle class homeowners -- and as the money rolled in transformed into Lifestyles of the Rich and Shameless.

Like Dr. Jekyll turning into Mr. Hyde.

It's a nice idea that I can let YOU design YOUR dream wardrobe and dress you your best instead of pressuring you to starve yourself and get cosmetic surgery and maim yourself so you can have the look our insane heteronormative, White Supremacist misogynistic homophobic culture approves of. And your quality of life be damned.

But it's probably a seed every gatekeeper everywhere shall want to try to kill before it can grow. And me along with it if one can judge by the state of my life.