Last night was my first lecture of the semester, which meant I donned my suit. Since I work in a chemistry lab, it means I have to change clothes, and I encounter people who know that's not what I wore to work originally. This particular time, it generated some unexpected responses and reinforced that the way you dress changes the way people address you. As visual creatures, we depend, sometimes too much and too quickly, on what information our eyes convey. Even if it is true, it's often not the whole truth or is misinterpreted as something it isn't based on our prior experience and personal bias. One of the most annoying things about working in academia is to watch young women fall over themselves fawning over men who look good on the outside but are rotten or empty at their core. I see lots of pretty women on campus; most of them do not see me, and some that do look on me with disdain because I look like, well, I probably look homeless if you don't know I'm a chemist. It was an interesting day.
Another professor assumed I was headed to religious services that evening. Since she is a member of my Faith, she recognized that we usually gussy up for special services and assumed that I only dress to the nines when I'm headed to God's house. I was completely caught off guard, because I will also wear my suit to concerts, lecture, and job interviews, and my previous dean used to assume I was headed to another interview instead. Although my parents sometimes bewail the way I dress and groom myself, in truth I am among the better dressed in the department. Since I spend five days per week in a chemistry lab and one day a week hiking on the mountain, I don't often dress up for work. You run the risk of damage to your clothes in these activities, and i told my class later that night not to wear anything to lab they would hate to ruin. We are so accustomed to lackadaisical dress in academia that a man in a suit is rare and remarkable. The pointy-headed intellectuals all too often dress like French Impressionists rather than Pasteur and Plank, and so they don't really stick out much from the student body except for their age.
On the way home after class, I stopped to pick up a few groceries, and a man in the store told me that he'd vote for me. Now, this particular Smiths is the one where I shop when I think I'm fat, ugly, poor, or undesireable, but I have seen well dressed people there before. Usually I think it's couples on dates, and given that we're only 10 weeks from the election of 2016, I guess it makes sense that he assumed I must be a candidate. I don't really live in a white collar part of town; people who live here work in those fields, but the businesses in the area are not exactly upper crust. The way I dress and comport myself inspires confidence and trust. If you dress smart, you must be smart, and we had a substantive albeit brief exchange, I thanked him for his support and continued to select my victuals.
On my way to class, some young people in a large, expensive truck pulled up beside me and told me that they'd pray for me. I sometimes forget how ugly my Saturn is, and I guess they assumed I was going to a job interview and meant they would pray and hope that I'd get the job! I almost always dress the best I can for job interviews, so it wasn't anything different for me, but imagine the contrasting image of a well-dressed, well-groomed, well-comported man emerging from a 1995 Saturn with peeling clear coat and scratches on the fenders. I must make quite a sight! Then again, I spend enough time around young people to know that they assume that if you own and wear expensive things that you must be desirable, if for no other reason besides you must be rich, right? The clothes make the man, right? I mean, there was this attractive woman near my age with a much older, fatter man, and I can only assume she was with him because he drove an expensive truck. We are so accustomed to people owning expensive things in determining their worth that we assume those without them are poor. I appreciate the sentiment of these people, and I welcome their prayers, but I wasn't really in need of them for the reason they assumed.
I don't usually give a very good first impression. I dress, do, and speak what is practical. I mean, people who actually get to know me realize I'm pretty damn awesome, and my friends are not my friends for what I wear or own. However, I dress in my suit because it commands respect and shows respect. I would never go to church in swimwear or attend a funeral in jogging attire or play racquetball in a labcoat, and I don't own clothing that is offensive or provocative unless you are offended by the color, material, or country of origin. I don't care about those things when I buy it as much as I care about fit and price, and obviously I took good enough care of this suit that I bragged to my class that I've owned and worn it for 17 years. In our modern throw away society, that also commands respect and changes the form of address. I think some of my students found it admirable; the plastic among them probably found it cheap and tawdry, but that just means i learned more about them than they intended to reveal. If you change how you treat people because of how they look, what they wear, or where they live, that tells me things about you. It tells me you haven't really learned to look upon the heart.
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