Today I was sitting outside in the sunshine on a bench waiting for my class to start. I wanted to look carefree and slightly apathetic about school so I sat indian style and took my shoes off and ate some raisins and almonds. I was wearing a new plaid shirt and my electric blue skinny jeans and an oversized scarf in hopes of making the outfit look more casual. I recently read a post on twitter that if you want to disappear in a sea of white people, wear plaid. Consequently today, within the first 10 minutes of stepping on campus I noticed at least 5 other girls wearing plaid. I was slightly upset at this because I felt as though I was conforming when, truly, I've been wearing plaid for ages. Heck, I wore flannel diapers, I'm from the freakin' mountains. Needless to say, I was slightly self-conscious today because I felt too trendy. In my desire to not look like everyone else, I just end up dressing like all those other people who don't want to conform either--who are a group in themselves. I'm just waiting for someone to tell me, yes, it's okay to do what someone else does...what did you just say??!
As I was sitting there, legs crossed, moleskine appropriately placed on my lap because I'm trying to look introspective (which I ironically am, to a fault most of the time) a dark haired, checkered shirt bearded man comes and sits a few feet away from me on the same bench. I immediately noticed his shoes, because I have a shoe fetish and because we all know shoes tell a lot about someone. They were white and tan with elaborate latches that crossed over the top. I had never really seen anything like them. Hipster Red Flag 1. He was wearing a gingham shirt with dark wash jeans. It seemed as though he was eating his lunch that came out of a plastic grocery bag but I'm not sure. I was most intrigued by the way he was sitting though. He was leaning back on his hand but his body was turned a completely opposite direction, it just didn't seem natural. None the less, he was facing me. As I was packing up my things to leave, I suddenly felt this conviction to speak to him welling up inside of me. What was I going to say? What do I have to say to someone that I have only looked at and never spoken to? As my mind was scrambling to think of something quick in order to satisfy this conviction, I glanced at him maybe hoping for some kind of que and there it was--not only a full beard, but a full beard with a curly ended mustache. Oh yes, like those ones that everyone draws on their fingers and holds above their mouth, like those ones that they are putting on drinking glasses at Urban Outfitters, like those ones that only someone in Europe should have. You know what I'm talking about. So I cooly said "Nice mustache" and he slowly looked up from his sunglasses and replied, slightly flattered, "thanks." I hopped up from the bench nonchalantly, as though I hadn't at all processed every single minute detail about his appearance, and walked passed him towards my class.
I giggled to myself after this encounter because 1. that stache was ridiculous and 2. because I always try to fool people into thinking that I'm more confident than I actually am. It's true, we will never know if this man was from Europe and was just dressing like his french brothers or perhaps that he genuinely was striving to achieve a unique look. Either way, he caught my attention. I can't say I'm proud of my natural tendency to want to label who is hip and who is not but I do it nonetheless. Yes, I like to think I have a unique, fresh sense of style but at the same time, I can't be too unique that people are confused. The funny thing about this whole obsession with playing the "who is really a hipster?" game is that shouldn't there only be one hipster in the world if his sole motive is to not conform to anyone? In their sweet attempts to be stand-alone, hipsters are actually very easy to spot because they all look the same. I do not mean to ridicule the hipster culture, I mean to be their close friend, a bosom buddy who wants to remind them that it's okay to look like other people. It's actually good. Shouldn't we dress like the kind of person we would ideally be attracted to? I have approached someone strictly based on their appearance and it couldn't have been more successful. Appearance is there to help us know if we can relate to someone else, and many times it's very helpful. By no means should we always assume a stranger is a certain way by their clothes, but we can learn a lot from them. And that is OKAY.
