It Is Impossibly Easy To Bully Me Into Buying Things And I Need To Change

About two weeks ago we went out to dinner for Kevin’s birthday. It was a lovely meal over at Union Square Cafe, where I dined on quail, but it was a classic New York dinner in that it the reservation was for a time way later than I need to eat food. I believe it was 9 PM, maybe 8:30. Either way, that’s when I’m ordering my second dinner of the night so I knew I had to distract myself until it was feeding time.

As it’s the end of a season I’ve grown very tired of my clothes. Every few months once I’ve exhausted all of my ensembles I grow to fucking despise my closet, so I checked out what stores were around the restaurant and decided to peruse to take my mind off the insatiable hunger. There wasn’t much that tickled my fancy but I settled on J. Crew.

I walked in sweating, because I’d just walked about 25 blocks from my apartment, and panting, because chivalry is still alive at J. Crew and the men’s department is on the third floor. A salesperson immediately said, “You look like a man on a mission,” which I thought was a very polite way for him to say, “Jesus Christ man, did you just do a crossfit class?” I informed him that I was just browsing and he said, “Well if you’re open to suggestions I’ve got the perfect piece for you.” Of course, I was already in. If you say “perfect” in a sentence about me I’m immediately captivated, it’s like mentioning the Lost Ark around Indiana Jones: it’s something we covet so badly but aren’t even sure that it’s possibly real. The salesman showed me back to the Liquor Store section and presented me with the aforementioned “perfect piece.”

My heart immediately sank. I had, had such high hopes, fantasizing about myself strutting around a spring soaked NYC in whatever gorgeous piece of clothing I was about to be shown, fending women off like I was in an Axe commercial, but when I saw the shirt I knew it was not to be. It was a merino sweater. I recognized the material right away in the same way Superman notices the presence of Kryptonie, it’s primal that we know what will ultimately lead to our demise. Merino is far too thin to hide my fat, it hugs me in all the wrong places, and I just look awful in it.

Nevertheless, Greg (we’d become acquainted at this point) ignored my despondent face, the sheepish way I handled the sweater, and urged me to at least try it on. He said all the right things, he told me the color perfectly complimented my hair, and since I’m a sucker for a kind word I obliged. In the changing room I just stood shirtless, fanning myself and begging my body to stop sweating from the three flights of stairs I walked up 10 minutes earlier, so I could put on this fucking wool sweater and see how awful I looked. I donned it on and you’ll never believe this, but it was disgusting. More accurately, I was disgusting. Love handles and tits all over the place. I turned to different angles, trying to find one little part of it that didn’t make me want to puke, but it was a lost cause. It was so bad that I gave up trying to see myself ever wearing it in public and shifted to practicing breaking the news to Greg that he was out of his mind to think I’d look good in that and I wouldn’t be buying it, pumping myself up in the mirror like people do in movies before a big speech.

It was then I heard a very odd request, “Can I come in?” Uhhhh what, Greg? I’m kinda in the middle of working on part three of my apology to you for not buying the sweater you put 3 minutes of work into getting me to buy. Instead of letting him in, I opted for the more normal thing to do where I walked out. He immediately doused me in flattery. I honestly don’t even know if he was gay or straight but he played the part of a gay man very well, talking about how the sweater blended perfectly with my beard (thought calling whatever is on my face a beard was him showing his hand that he’s a liar, but I accepted anyway) and even said it hugged my arms perfectly. As soon as he said that I knew I was buying the sweater. I knew I looked terrible in it, I knew my facial hair would not be described as a beard by an unbiased person, I knew the sweater didn’t highlight non-existent muscles, and I knew I was buying it anyway.

So now I have like a $200 sweater and a $100 awful Hawaiian shirt (which Greg suckered me into buying on my walk to the register) sitting in a J. Crew bag in my closet. Yes, they’re still in the bag. They’ll stay there forever, right next to the bag of pants and sweaters from Trunk Club which I bought for the same reason, because I’m never going to wear them. I knew that they’d never be worn when I bought them, but I’m such a pushover pussy that I bought them anyway. I don’t know when I’m going to turn into a man and a person that can tell a stranger, “No thank you, that’s not my taste,” but I need it to come soon because I’m sick of buying clothes I hate just so I don’t have to be mildly impolite to a salesperson.