Our work Christmas party is coming up next month, and while I dislike the drunkenness and shouting, I do enjoy the compliments I get when my colleagues see me in a dress for the one day a year that I wear one (don’t worry, I’m exaggerating).
This year’s theme is red and/or green, so I’ll be off to the op-shop sometime this month to pick out something cute and green. Why green? Because red means something, and I don’t want to be "that girl". When I explained this to Kyle he was baffled because everyone knows that a girl pitching up in a red dress is there to be looked at. Even though he wasn’t going to be attending, he thought I deserved to show-off a bit. But also, green is more ‘my style’ and it matches my eyes.
I stumbled across some thoughts I wrote down after last year’s Christmas party.
Last Christmas was the first time most of my colleagues had ever seen me in a dress. Because of this, I expected the positive reaction I got. The attention was welcome and amusing enough that I didn’t once feel shy. But part of the reason I knew I’d turn heads was because I never dress like that, and for some (mostly women), I felt it was their way of trying to convince me that I should dress up more. Naturally, I resent that.
This is a MASSIVE topic that I know I come back to in snippets many times over my life because not only is it fascinating, but it’s also something I struggle with occasionally and have my opinions flip flop all over the place about it.
There’s a weird thing about knowing you look nice in a dress, and that’s that non-manufactured body confidence is rare these days and so I often fall into the temptation to dress down or avoid attention because that’s seen as more “normal”. It’s not even socially common to accept praise on your looks (especially in New Zealand) or highlight the qualities about yourself that you’re proud of. However, this tends to apply strictly to girls. Kyle is always telling me that a confident girl is attractive, and while I used to actively avoid getting a boy’s attention, I’ve started to make peace with it a bit more and even dabbled with a bit of modest “showing off”. The motivation for which has most come from Kyle enjoy showing me off, so I better dress the part, right!
In every-day life, I like my attire to compliment my personality. When I wear an extremely feminine dress, I almost want a disclaimer card to hand people that says, “I’m also cool, trust me”. I feel most like me when I’m wearing my favourite vintage T and some casual shorts because I like to be able to defend myself if I have to, and Kyle teases me about my clothing attire when I say things like “but I can’t cartwheel in that!”.
So, you can see why I flip flop so often! Confidence is great but won’t easily win me female friends. I like turning heads but I’m just naturally a tomboy!
Last Christmas I wore sneakers with my dress which was the main reason I felt ok. But this year, my boss is expecting me to wear heels and I’ve kind of challenged myself to maintain last year’s confidence while trying not to roll my ankle. I’m scared and I don’t think I can pull it off, which is why I’m bringing some backup sneakers just in case. Got to look after one’s self, right?
* wink *