I recently bought myself this long flowy vest, purposely to wear over some things that otherwise are slightly too sheer or too floofy to wear to work. Well, today I am wearing it with the infamous wedding cake dress/top, leggings, and boots. As soon as Led Zep girl saw this ensemble this morning, she went nuts. She loves the shirt, she loves the vest, she loves the two of them together. And when Receptionist Without Colorful Nickname came in, she started telling her to go check out my outfit because it's so cute and stylish.
Apparently my boss overheard all this and so felt compelled to stick his head in my office and say deadpan, "I hear you're looking stylish today."
I gave him my wide-eyed disingenuous look and my most sincere voice. "I'm wearing my new vest."
Cut to later in the day. I was in the back room and he came in to get coffee. "Nice outfit, Andrea!" Because, much like this blog, in my office we never let a joke drop.
I smirked at him. "You wouldn't have noticed if you hadn't been told."
And so he started telling me that, yeah, his wife will go to the salon and come back with a slightly different hair color that he of course *won't* notice, and he is then subjected to many pointed remarks about how insensitive he is. I told him, yeah, it's unfortunate, but we women do many things we think will make us more attractive to our men, and it's always stuff yous people never notice. (Cleavage and a plate of cupcakes, amirite? I'll figure this shit out yet!)
He countered by saying that if you say "you look nice today," you are implying she doesn't look nice all the other days, so by saying nothing it means you always think she's beautiful. I said, "No, no, no. You say, 'you're looking particularly beautiful today.'" He was slightly awestruck and had to admit that was damn good. I suggested he go home and try it tonight. Uh uh. The response to that would be, like the response to spontaneous flowers, "Okay, WHAT have you done?"
His closing thesis statement was that you therefore cannot be nice, because nice is always equated with guilt. I wanted to rebut this, but I realized that in some relationships, it probably is. There has to be some kind of precedent set before you bust out the "you're looking particularly beautiful today" or someone's gonna assume you bought a motorcycle or fucked a flight attendant.
Cliff notes: Girls--provide boobs and pastry. Boys--set the precedent ASAP or you will suffer. That'll be $200. You're welcome. God, I should write a book.
xoxo
5 comments:
An either wise or (and?) completely amoral man I once knew recommended to me three and only three things to say to a woman: "You are young". "You are thin". "You are beautiful". (Yes, once you add the "today" to the "you look beautiful today", you WILL be questioned on the basis of all the other days). He also used to stress the importance of "deny, deny, deny" in any inter-gender exchange, and I often wonder, had I listened to him more closely, whether I might still be married today.
Yes, about the cupcakes: "Show up naked--bring food". Works every time.
I said I'll figure this shit out yet. :-)
Cleavage and cupcakes...love it! I think you/we should start a franchise.
Yep, start a Cleavage and Cupcakes franchise. Get pickets from all across the political spectrum. Obtain tons of free publicity (no such thing as bad publicity). Expand to 1500 stores. Sell out for half a billion. What a concept!
You people are so much more entrepreneurial (you can't spellcheck comments, so bite me) than I am! It could be like one of those topless or bikini coffee shops they have in the PNW, right? Only a bakery instead. The actual baker needs to wear an apron though. I wouldn't want to be responsible for anyone *burning* their cleavage.
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