Manda JO, I bow to your insight and eloquence on this matter. But I must add the caveat that if **elmwood ** finds glaring deficiencies in so many of the women he encounters (citing previous posts started by him), eventually, he may need to ask himself if perhaps he needs to adjust his expectations.
Or his selection mehods: I am guessing this was set up on-line (since he’d never met the woman before a coffee date). I suspect he’s answering the wrong ads.
It’s not uncommon for people to do this, especially if there is an internal conflict between who you want to date and who you think you should want to date: you keep pursuing the latter and getting irritated when you discover they are not the former.
It seems to me that the OP has already met this woman – first impressions have already been made and she’s attractive enough to qualify for a first date. At this point, I think it’s time to get past the clothes. What did you think about her as a person? Maybe your concentration on her clothes is a sign that you didn’t really like her personality.
Or maybe you are overly concerned with the clothes. In that case, I think you might be the one overly concerned with appearances. I mean, you already know that you find her attractive enough to date, so what’s the deal here?
Just a clarification on the Generation X thing. The book that defined the term was published in 1991, and was about people in their mid 20’s. That would make them, right about now, about 40!
P.S. I work in the education marketplace, and I see teachers all the time. I just got back from a conference that was full of teachers. I think that it is entirely fair to say there is a “teacher” look, especially for those 40+. I also saw the same look when I was in Salt Lake City and there was a scrapbooking convention going on.
Here’s a site where you can buy dickeys. It gives a pretty thorough explanation of what they’re for and some pictures.
40 is on the older side of Gen-X but I think it counts. To me the classic gen-xer was in college during the late 80s and 90s and is now in their mid to latish-30s. Basically the age the characters in that damn Winona Ryder-Ethan Hawke movie would be about now. I think the cutoff year for Gen-X is 79 or something but that’s on the really really young end of it. I actually think elmwood has more “claim” on the label than someone in their late 20s.
What exactly constitutes “smooth jazz”, anyways?
And I’m only 27 (turning 28 on Saturday, in fact), and I hate Top Forty and haven’t listened to it since I was in high school.
Still, to be still identifying as a “gen-xer” at 40 strikes me as odd, and a triffle fixated. Of course, as I mentioned earlier, generation-identity isn’t that important to me–my best friends are all either over 50 or under 21 (former students and parents of former students, mostly)
I am a teacher. I acknowledge that there is a “teacher look”. Hell, I am guilty of the “teacher look”, though I don’t even own anything with a print or words–but my clothes are plain and serviceable and dowdy as all get out. That’s not my point. my point is that is who I really am–dowdy and unconcerned with appearences. It’s not going to change. And that’s fine. I married a man who isn’t bothered by that and we are very happy. I hope the lady in the OP meets a similar man. I certainly wouldn’t want her to spend any time with someone who will cringe when they look at her. That said, I don’t think anyone needs to feel sorry for her for or blame her for being who she is.
Although this is a tangent, I am going to jump into the fray to defend **elmwood’s ** identity as a Gen-X. The Baby Boomers are certainly still identifying with their generation, as they rock on into the sunset. Just like the Baby Boomers, Gen X was shaped by a generational set of experiences, and we will continue to be influenced by common experiences (such as the lack of Social Security after Boomers are done at the trough [/rant]). So **elmwood ** and his dating pool are solidly Gen-X. Gen-Y, or Millenials, are the optimistic, well-adjusted younguns coming along behind.
Having given this some thought, I’m coming to the conclusion that elmwood just didn’t click with this woman and it’s no foul on either side. This Monday-morning quarterbacking of both parties’ sartorial choices is unnecessary, unhelpful, and beneath all of us, really. She dresses the way she wants to. If she likes cutesy sweaters, then she should wear them whenever she wants. And if elmwood likes wearing shorts and sneakers, he should wear them whenever he wants. And both of them should wear their favourite clothes on all their first dates. The goal should not be to make the best impression, necessarily, but an honest impression.
Fair enough, I will concede that elmwood is indeed Gen X, although at the upper end. I’m all the way down at the lower end, and I guess I hadn’t realized how much time has passed.
That being said, I don’t think smooth jazz is a problem. But if you see a CD compilation of “Best of Soft Rock” then run like hell.
Soft rock is EVIL, y’all!
Wow–I’d never before heard anyone but my Cleveland-area relatives use that term!
I wonder if the teacher look has something to do with being constantly wary of any kind of sexual attention. As a schoolteacher, that’s got to be one of the more seriously terrifying possibilities. You’ve got it in your head that no one at elementary school should be looking at you in a remotely sexual way, not even (especially not?) co-workers, and your wardrobe starts to get stagnant.
I know I got somewhat more conservative in dress when I worked at a mental institution–I didn’t even wear skirts to work–no leg, no open-toed shoes, no cleavage…and I’m 24. I’m no longer working there, but my working wardrobe’s full of “safe” clothing, and I can’t afford to just go out and youth-ify it right away.
elmwood , what outfit would you like a woman to wear then?
I always wondered about drawing a distinction between early & late Gen-Xers, because there always struck me a difference between the earlier ones (those that are 35-36 and up), and the later ones(under 35), because there was a totally different dynamic working when they got out of college and started working- I’m 33, and when I graduated(1996), it was at the very beginning of the internet boom, and there wasn’t quite the degree of slacker-ness and cynicism among my peers as there seemed to have been among people a few years older.
As to the OP… my mom’s a teacher, and she wears jumpers all the time, along with god-awful neckaces of apples and blackboards, and other hyper-teachery stuff like that. But she’s pushing 60 and teaches pre-schoolers (head-start program), so it seems appropriate for her to dress like that at work. She doesn’t necessarily dress like that outside of work though.
I think teachers sort of self-select for the fashions, in a way. I mean, there’s a certain type of person who’s cut out to be a successful teacher, and they seem to not be particularly concerned with fashion, or looking sexy, and many of that sort of person end up as teachers, just like many women who are concerned with looking sexy aren’t really cut out for teaching, and so don’t do it. As always, YMMV, and I’ve known a couple of HOT teachers in the past.
Allow me to clear up the Gen X issue. Those of us born between say 1961 and 1968 are neither Gen Xers nor Boomers. We are “Tweeners” and not part of either generation. The criteria are that you don’t remember the JFK assasination but you do remember Watergate. Defining movie: The Breakfast Club.
I’ve been meaning to start a thread about this.
I was born in 1960, I never felt like a baby Boomer,I felt too young, yet, I always felt too old to be a generation X guy. I was too young to remember JFK’s assassination, however, I never saw The Breakfast Club.
I can’t say what my defining movie might be, I’d guess it was Star Wars or The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
What the hell do I call my generation? The Twits?
On the other hand, the most common working definition in demographic research I’ve seen of GenX is birth dates between 1961 - 81. I have seen “tweeners” used to more closely define a subset of GenX if that added a significant meaning to the data.
The problem is that there’s not an agency somewhere that governs these things. You’re free to define the generations in a variety of ways, and it probably changes depending upon what you are trying to study. And it’s important to remember that in every generational definition, there are a lot of people who don’t fit the norms. A big factor is siblings – if a family spans the traditional cut-off between two generations, the younger siblings tend to exhibit more of the older generation’s characteristics.
I gotta’ agree with **Purd Werfect ** – the whole idea of dating the teacher is to get her out of those pre-school togs. It’s elementary, my dear elmwood!
Did you ever have a crush on a teacher when you were a kid? Well, now you can live the fantasy! 
Douglas Coupland wrote Generation X. He wrote it about the people he knew. He was born in 1965. Kurt Cobain was another Gen X icon. He was born in 1967. It would seem elmwood is right in the sweet spot.
It was always my understanding that Generation X meant you were old enough to remember summer brush cuts, but not old enough to worry about going to Vietnam, even a little (I except myself in this respect; I made my decision about the war when I was four and a half). I mean the name comes from a first-generation punk band for chrissakes.