A favourite sitcom joke is how the woman is always trying to stuff her feet into shoes two sizes too small. Or how a woman want to be a smaller size, but today I was in Kohls and I overheard a conversation that went something like this
Friend) Oh C’mon Louise your husband isn’t a large. He’s at least a double-X
Louise) I know, but if I buy him that, he’ll get mad and say I’m calling him fat
Friend) But he is fat, that’ll never fit.
Louise) So I’ll just give it to him with a receipt and he can exchage it on Monday and he’ll think I won’t know
Friend) But…
Louise) Look it’s just easier this way.
Now outside of Jerry Seinfeld changing his size 32 jeans to size 31, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a man being that sensitive.
So what do you think? Are the men you know that sensitive? What about your husbands or significant others?
If they did care, Levi’s would go out of business, seeing as they put the size right there on the waistline for all the world to read. (Am I the only one who actually reads them?)
I’ve never encountered a guy who cares, but I’m sure they’re out there.
Honestly Mr. Levins has lost weight recently and is actually been heard complaining that he’s going to have to buy new pants now because the old ones are starting to look goofy, even when held up with a belt.
I’ve NEVER complained about having to go buy a smaller size.
Depends what you mean by “care.” I wouldn’t care about someone making a realistic assessment of my size. I do care if i’m too fat.
Back in March, after some months of eating too much and not doing enough exercise, i had put on a bunch of weight. I was up to 207 pounds (6’ tall), and plenty of my pants and shirts didn’t fit me anymore. Now, after a summer and fall of eating better and getting plenty of exercise, i have lost 22 pounds. I feel a lot better, look a lot better, and i can fit into all my clothes again.
I did care about being overweight. It was the first time i had put on so much weight, and i didn’t like it. I also didn’t like the fact that half my clothes didn’t fit anymore, and i deliberately refused to buy any clothes while i was so heavy. On the other hand, though, i wasn’t in denial either.
Yeah, I care. I’ve put on around 20 pounds this past summer and I’ve pretty much gone anorexic to get this weight off. Only problem is when I go out drinking and stuff my face and gain all that weight back again. It’s a struggle to say the least.
My boyfriend went with his buddy about two years ago because the friend needed an interview suit and wanted an opinion. The guy would NOT LISTEN. He swore up and down that Size Whatever was his size, and my boyfriend was trying like hell to get the guy to see that look, his belly was doing that that “sling the pants under my belly thing” and he needed a bigger size, but the friend swore up and down that those pants fit and felt fine and that that was his size. He bought them.
I want clothes that fit, regardless of what the label says. I’ve found that sometimes that’s a small, sometimes a medium, sometimes a large (I’m basically average, a little on the tall and thin side). Pants are measured in inches, but there’s still a lot of variation because some pants are meant to be worn higher than others.
Unscientific observation tells me women are more likely to squeeze themselves into clothes that are too small, men are more likely to wear clothes that are too large. Of course individual behaviors vary widely.
The closest I come to actually caring about what size clothes I’m wearing is that with the weight I put on over the past few years my size 48 pants are too snug, but I don’t want to go out and buy new pants in size 50. Part of this is because buying pants in the larger size strikes me as accepting the weight gain and removing the incentive to lose weight. And part of it is the psychological effect of the number 50; I didn’t feel that bad when I had gone from size 46 to 48.
I agree with this in general, but when the measurements are in actual, real-life inches, or when i see myself needing a larger size in a particular brand, then i care. For example, i know my sizes in Levis 501s, and i didn’t like going from a 34" to a 36" waist. And i’m happy now that my 36 pants are now too loose.
With sizes like S, M, L, etc., i definitely don’t care, because there is so much variation. I have shirts labeled S, shirts labeled M, and shirts labeled L, all of which fit me just fine. The main reason i get annoyed with this inconsistency is when i want to buy a shirt online, and it’s a brand i’ve never bought before, i don’t know which size to order. If i’m buying a Ben Sherman shirt, i know that an M will be just fine, because i already have a few in the wardrobe. But if it’s a brand i’ve never owned, or a new style, then it can be a crapshoot, and i prefer to go to a store to try it on.
Sure, I prefer being thinner (I’m on the thin end now, for me), but I am not sensitive about saying whatever size I actually am at the moment, whatever it is. In fact, I don’t get the rationale otherwise. You look how you look. Does lying or deluding yourself into a smaller number mean you look better? Does a 300-pounder suddenly look skinny if he tells people he weighs 200? You look fat or thin or in between, and actually saying the number doesn’t change a thing.
And my wife, of all people, would not be fooled by the clothing switch described in the OP. She knows how I look without clothing to obscure the picture. What, a sweatshirt size is going to make her think I lost 20 pounds?
Another “Just give me something that fits” here. We don’t want to have to go back to the store to exchange it, and we don’t give a damn what the size tag says. We know what size we are, so that’s the size we want. Anything else is just a waste of time.
I’m another that cares very much about the inches measurement on trousers/jeans because that’s one of the best indicators I have of my weight/size. In terms of a piece of clothing being labelled as “small” or “medium” - those seem to be entirely arbitrary so I’m less bothered. A shop in Europe, Zara, for example has clothing that is uniformly one size too small for me. Even at my smallest (when I was considered unhealthily thin by my friends) I couldn’t get into a small size of theirs.
Oh, and I’ve never understood the idea of cramming yourself into something that is too small for you because you don’t like the idea of being “the wrong size”. It’ll look and feel shit, and surely that will offset any enjoyment you get from knowing you’re wearing a size you prefer.
