Commentary

Nothing to wear

AS I GROW older I learn to appreciate women more and more every day. I appreciate the elements that make up their characters, and they don't even confuse me anymore.

In has only been in the last decade or so that if you make your woman laugh, you have things a lot easier. What I also find to be true is that if you observe women closely enough, they make you laugh and that is a good thing.

One of the things that always cracks me up is the way women never seem to have anything to wear, and their obsession with shoes. There are two girls in my office who, if God gave them the money, would probably buy shoes stores just for themselves.

I really don't have a problem with this obsession because I like to see women wear nice shoes. Many men will raise their eyebrows at this, but I believe that a beautifully designed woman's shoe is truly a work of art. This work of art can be gloriously enhanced by the elegance of the foot it adorns. But, enough of my fetishes.

Another of the more hilarious characteristics displayed by women is their propensity to never be able to decide what to wear when they're going out. It takes them a whole week or more to decide and still, five minutes before she is to walk through the door to go out, she is still fussing, wondering if everything is perfect.

Me, I grab a pair of jeans and a shirt and that's it for me, or if it's something formal, a shirt, the dreaded tie and a pair of cotton pants and shoes will do it for me. A woman will have a closet bursting with clothes; dresses she has worn only once, skirts and blouses that have never been worn and shoes still inside the boxes, but that is never enough.

Competitive edge

If you're a caring man, who shows and interest in what your woman wears, it can be an ordeal because you have to be the judge of what she wears, only she never listens to anything you say, so the whole exercise is pointless.

She'll ask 'How does this look?' You say, 'Great, you look real sexy.' And she does, but almost always, she'll find a reason not to wear it. Either it doesn't go with the shoes, or if it matches the shoes, it's the wrong style for the bag, and almost certainly, if it does not match the earrings you can turn on the television and find some sports because it's going to be a while.

There was a time when this exercise would make me angry. After all, what kind of woman can't find something to wear in a closet full of clothes? The answer is most women.

What I am unable to figure out is why they are like this. I used to think that it had something to do with the competitive edge women share. They are always wanting to top the crowd.

The truth is that a woman never likes to see a woman dress better than she does. So, I imagine that when she is dressing she is doing so while conjuring up images of what other women might be wearing and how she can top that, and this takes time. It's like some weird form of chess that women play before preparing to socialise. As I matured I basically stopped caring why. It was a waste of time because when you think about it, while they may be similar no two women are exactly alike. That makes it impossible to figure out what they are thinking and why. Nowadays I console myself by thinking that she takes so much time because she wants to look good for me. It's a naive way of thinking, I know, but heck, it's better than frustrating myself trying to understand why!