I'm 32 and I can't seem to dress myself

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

This could be a Pit Rant because I’m so annoyed! But I need empathy and kindness, so I’m in MPSIMS.

What is it about me? I’m fairly bright, I don’t live in a cave – so why is it, at the age of 32, that I still arrive at work and realize I’ve made a major mistake in Getting Dressed for the Day.

Take today, for example. I’m wearing a suit with a long skirt, almost to my ankles. As I was getting dressed this morning, I put on three (yes three) pairs of black tights(not all at once) only to discover that each one had a big run in the foot. This depleted my supply of (clean) black tights.

So, being a fairly bright person, I hit upon a plan. I can wear a pair of very thin black kneesocks, because my skirt goes well past my knees. No one will ever know I’m wearing kneesocks! Having been burned by similar plans in the past, I also make the smart (I thought) move of wearing them around the house for a while, so I could make sure they didn’t fall down, or look awful, or anything like that, which they didn’t.

Until I got to work that is. And the darn socks won’t stay up. It’s obvious to the world (and more importantly, my coworkers) that I’m wearing kneesocks, and not just any kneesocks, but Buffalo Sabres kneesocks, with a red billy goat mascot and the words GO SABRES! all around the top of the sock. I was planning to run out and buy some real stockings at lunch, and at the very last moment, my boss asked that I take her place at a luncheon where I had to stand up ON A PLATFORM so that my socks would be at the audience’s eye level.

My choices were to staple the socks to my legs to hold them up, or, take off the socks and go sockless. I chose the latter, and now have lovely blisters on both heels to show for my dressing abilities.

Everyone, tell me I am not alone! Tell me that otherwise intelligent adults sometimes get to the office and realize that they accidentally dressed for kindergarden instead of the workplace!

Please? Anyone? [sub]Hello?[/sub]

2

Well, the lighting in my closet is not the greatest, and I do have many pairs of pants similar in color (green, grey, brown, earthy stuff). I have walked into the bright sun and seen that the tie in no way matched anything else I happened to be wearing, which luckily is a quick fix. Even today, I thought I had on one pair of pants, but actually had on another. Luckily it still works. My tie is felxible enough to catch both ideas. Socks and shoes are easy, as is the belt, but the pants catch me sometimes.

3

You are not alone, I am 43 and have arrived at work with socks from opposite ends of the spectrum, my shirt buttoned lopsided, a patch of fur under my chin that somehow escaped the razor and pants with a huge hole in the crotch. :eek: people ask me if I got dressed in the dark at least a couple times a month. I wish I could work nekkid!

4

Next time, use bandaids or scotch tape to keep your stockings up. Of course, if they fall then, the loose sticky ribbons fluttering about your ankles will make you look like a deranged street person. Rubber bands would probably work, but I don’t know if that would be good for your circulation.

But you didn’t really post this for handy tips, did you? You wish commiseration, a sense of not being alone on this scary blue marble we call home. Well I’m your man. What I know about fashionable and appropriate dressing is less than I know about fluid dynamics, and that’s absolutely nothing. I’m successfully out of place whenever I step foot outside my apartment, no matter where I go. It’s so bad that my wardrobe consists now of only jeans and tshirts, a difficult combo to screw up. But I usually manage to anyway. I tried khakis once, and promptly dropped a piece of pizza in my lap, forcing me to walk around at work all day looking like I peed my pants, thanks to the prominent grease stain at ground zero. The janitors at my office dress better than me. I’ve no idea how I succeed in professional life. If I was to don a pink leisure suit with a ruffled purple shirt and a pair of flipflops, those who know me would ask if I was going to a job interview.

If I had seen your socks, I would have thought you were totally cool.

5

Well, my mom often shows up with one black sock and one navy sock. :slight_smile:

6

  1. delphica, hon, every time I’ve seen you, you’ve looked perfectly lovely.

  2. Don’t you hate the way nylons run after you wear them once? And how you never notice the run until you put them on? And how when you do take them off after wearing them with a run all day, you forget that they have a run in them and throw them in the laundry?

  3. Forget the tights, I’m curious about this presentation thingie. Taking the boss’s place is always a good thing. Nice work!

7

I mostly wear “business casual” which means khakis, a nice top, and comfortable shoes. When I wore pantyhose, I hated it when I got holes in the big toe area. I could count on having my big toe strangled before I could get home and pull that hose off.

8

Well, I’m usually not too bad, but since I buy navy and black and brown of any pair of shoes I really like, I have more than once gone to work with one black and one navy shoe! Also have gone to work with trouser-socks on under a long skirt only to realize later that there is a slit in my skirt high enough to show that I’m not wearing full-length stockings.

9

Isn’t that what rubber bands are for?

10

or use duct tape. That’s always flattering.

Were the runs all in the same foot? Because if you’ve got a pair with a bad left foot and a bad right foot, cut off the offending leg from each and wear both.

11

I have these moments ALL the time. I’m walking down the street, thinking about what I might make for dinner, doing a little window shopping and holy shit, look at that loser! Ha! Her socks are all slouchy and her shirt hangs kinda funny in the back and her shoes don’t match and is that…It is! She is actually wearing a bedazzled[sup]TM[/sup] bandanna! What a fre—
Oh, wait. That’s a reflection
Oh, NO. That’s me!

These moments are always right before you run into someone you haven’t seen since high school. Said run-in always looks fabulous.

I feel your pain.

bella

12

delphica, you’ve looked fabu every time I’ve seen you.

I too share your workwear woes. If it’s clean, it’s itchy and uncomfortable. If it’s comfy and perfect, it’s dirty. If it is tights or nylons, it’s runny in the foot or has a hole in the crotch area that my thigh fat pokes out of causing excruciating pain. Or everything will be great and perfect except you realize halfway through the day that the lace of your bra is jutting through your shirt. Or you realize that the shoes that you keep forgetting are horribly uncomfortable really are horribly uncomfortable, except you still have 10 blocks to walk to work and a bunch of errands to run at lunch. Or you get some kind of stain on the front of your sweater at lunch that you don’t notice until you get home.

Oh yeah. Why do you think I purchase only black and grey clothing now?

13

It gets worse if you don’t have an office to go to. Tuesday was cold and kind of stormy here, so I wore sweats and my great big moonboot slippers all morning, working on the computer. I got wrapped up in what I was doing and realized at about 1:25 that this is conference week and my daughter gets out of school at 1:30. I leaped into the car, drove over, and wouldn’t you know THAT was the day that she didn’t come meet me at the school driveway. I had to park and go in.

She’s apparently still a little too young to be embarrassed by what her mother wears, but it looks like I’m not too old to embarrass myself.

14

This thread reminds me of why I loved having a uniform. Six straight years of never spending one second wondering what I was going to wear to work.

My solution is, when and if I ever get a job, to assemble my own private version of a uniform. I’m thinking of one outfit for every work day of the week, without deviation. No mix-and-match for me, that’s too confusing. One Monday outfit, one Tuesday outfit, and so on. Everyone who thinks it’s funny can go ahead and laugh behind my back. At least I’ll look properly put together.

I’m very slowly improving my general wardrobe. About ten years ago I decided to phase out tee shirts with pictures or writing on them. Then I phased out tee shirts with pockets. Now I’ve relegated tee shirts in general to working out, and my regular top is a long-sleeved, tee-shirt-type shirt, but slightly nicer. I also phased in some sweaters and almost-blouses. And khakis instead of jeans. I wear nice-looking sandals all summer and, in theory, actual shoes in winter.

15

Whew, thanks for all the moral support, everyone! It’s good to know I’m not the only one who sometimes does things like this.

Of all fashion woes, I really think stockings are the worst. I know you gentleman sometimes complain about your neckties, but this nylon thing is the pits. For all I know, they come with holes and runs. The right leg and left leg idea works, if both pairs are the same brand of hose, otherwise the color is usually all screwy. They get holes in the crotch, the toes, the heels, essentially, all over. They either ride up or fall down, and to combat this, I have tried what I think is my size, and then every other size in both directions. Yep, they’re still either riding up or falling down.

I’m sad I didn’t think of duct tape. I think we have some in the office. My first instinct was staples, because that has worked in the past to fix falling down hems.

Purd Werfect, you sound like a party guy.

16

Me too - I finally wrote B and N inside the appropriate pair, so I could tell which was which in my mad dash to get dressed.

I want a closet light for Christmas! No, actually I want a huge walk-in closet with a full-length mirror for Christmas… (oh wait, that’s another thread…)

I don’t wear skirts/dresses much to work anymore (much to Mr. Pol’s chagrin) but I have done the knee-high trick before and of course had it backfire…