If you’re not one yourself, or indeed if you are one for that matter, have you ever just taken a step back to ask yourself just why is it that “esteemed gentlemen” go out of their way to look a certain way and act a certain way? We take the time to pick out the perfect set of suits and have them tailored just right, matching the suit with the right pair of shoes, the right shirt, cuff-links and perhaps even a pocket square.
Hell, the socks even match and even though nobody is going to see your shirt under your waistcoat or pull-over, you make sure it’s ironed properly. But why do we go to all this trouble just to look good? Oh and you can’t behave inappropriately if you’re wearing a suit, so why do we open doors for the ladies (even when you have absolutely no romantic intensions with the lady in question), why do we say “please” and “thank you”, and why do we just make an effort to follow a set of rules which nobody really knows where they come from?
I mean we often make a fuss about the seemingly irrational obsession women appear to have about how they look, yet us men actually take things further than just trying to look a bit glitsy like the paper pull-out male-models featured every other Sunday (for those who still buy physical copies of the Sunday paper, that is).
If you have ever asked yourself what the fuss is all about, you’re not alone and you’re in fact considerably justified in doing so. The truth is however there isn’t just one valid reason. Every single one of us can find a reason for endeavouring to make an effort to do something, even if that something is just dressing up really smartly.
The truth is however that it’s nothing more than a social construct which we’ve all kind of fallen into. It’s kind of a channel through which to feed our own vanity, no matter how we choose to veil that vanity. How many times do you look in the mirror to make sure everything is straightened out, for instance, even if you’re attending the funeral of a departed loved one? Whatever ceremony or event you’re attending is what the main business and focus of the day should be about, yet each of us worries about how we turned out and how we looked. Sure, you could well pass it off as merely showing respect, but either way it all comes back down to you as the individual.
It’s about how you feel and there’s nothing wrong with wanting to look good on the outside to mirror what’s going on in the inside. It’s about more than just wearing nice clothes, or expensively acquired nice clothes for that matter.
We dress to the nines so that we’re reminded of the importance of either the event we’re attending or just the importance of what we’ve dedicated our lives to doing in general. So whether you’re dressing up to go out to the casino, you’re attending someone’s wedding or you’re just heading down to the office, never feel bad about wanting to look the part!
