According to my personal life philosophy (garnered from my vast social experience), grabbing a couple pints means ultra-casual, jeans and t-shirt, sitting in a pub shooting the shit. Getting drinks means a loungey, more upscale environment. A nice skirt or dress, pricier cocktails, but no dancing. Going to a club means cleavage, heels, and smokey eyes. And a little drinking while dressing, to gear up to dancing to music that has no place on my iPod. These are simple dressing cues! There are variations, naturally–like, for example, if my university buddies invited me to go dancing, I’d know it would be to a hipsterish place, so I could shift my outfit towards arm warmers and skinny jeans, and get ready to flirt with the DJ to play me some Of Montreal. I am generally even neurotic enough to check out listings on Toronto.com to find dress code information, provided I know the name of the venue beforehand.
But all the effort I put into planning outfits goes straight to hell when someone screws up the codes. An old friend invited me out for drinks the other night, so I blithely stepped out in my favourite dress (casual, but colourful and distinctive, with a hemline just below the knee), a bright set of flats, and dressed it up a little with a classic up-do and freshwater pearl necklace. I threw on a vintage-esque trench, and was off.
Only to find that we were headed for a club in the entertainment district. My companions were in clingy, low cut tank tops and tight jeans with heels, and the brightest colour involved was a muted teal.
People! This is why we have these social cues! I don’t want to give all my friends the third degree as to where exactly we’re going, what theme night it is there, what each of them are wearing, and the approximate average height of the heels worn by all members of the party. This is why I rely on codes, and then try on at least five outfits before deciding on one that suits the type of evening. And flatters my ass the most. But I’m going to be pulling out entirely the wrong outfits if the codes are mixed up!
Am I crazy? Is it just me? Do these unspoken rules exist solely in my own mind?
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