This post was submitted by Zack Rosen

“Uh, is this a theme party?”

The girl in the white dress briefly flicked her eyes up and down my frame, and then turned back to her friends like she had been left out. She looked shocked. I felt ashamed. The answer to her question was a resounding no. It was a housewarming party in DC’s rightfully named Mt. Pleasant neighborhood full of regular looking, regular dressing folks. And me, apparently. I did not fit into their ranks. But there was nothing else in anyone’s external accessories to suggest the theme was anything but “Drink beer and chat.” There were girls in t-shirts and jeans, guys in plaid shirts and khaki shorts. There was a girl with a silver eagle belt buckle. She was my favorite. 

But then there was me. I’ve been feeling lately that, as the owner of a slightly offbear personaly (and matching body type) I should start having a little more fun with the way I dress. I am almost a year out of my last office job and I once peed in the sink at a gay bar. There’s really nothing holding me towards dressing respectably. So on a hot summer night in our nation’s capital I left the house wearing a t-shirt, sneakers, striped calf socks and…cue the shocked gasps… black cutoff jean shorts. 

One particularly well-dressed friend of mine recently convinced me, though example, that it’s possible for a gay man to wear cutoff shorts and not look like an asshole or a holdover. And I myself tend to have problems finding shorts in stores that aren’t too long or too loose. Or that are cargo shorts, which in my mind is tantamount to tattooing an abercrombie logo on my forehead and demanding that no one touch my hair during sex. 

So I took the plunge. I bought a pair of slightly-too-small Anne Taylor jeans at a thrift store and cut them a couple inches above the knee. My boyfriend can barely look at the things- he says they look like a cross between mom jeans and bike shorts- but I’ve gotten fond of them. Both for how they look (I never balk at the opportunity to show more skin in public) and they trangressive act I feel I am committing at their mere donning. 

Stepping out my predominantly gay/indie bubble, as I did at that house party, I was immediately greeted with a reaction that confirmed what I’ve long suspected: Jean shorts are not OK. They just aren’t. I either was given sidelong looks of derision or outright backhanded compliments, like “You would fit right at home with my extended family in Missoula.” 

The worst part about this is that I am either insulted for having the gall to wear boom boom cutoffs in places where people eat and children play, or complimented (occasionally) for having the balls and sense of humor to go out in the things. There is nothing ironic about any of my clothing choices. I think things either fit well and suit me or they don’t. But something like jean shorts carries such a history. They recall farmers and country folk. They recall male hustlers from the ’80s and guys with handlebar mustaches and chlamydia who can dance like liquid ice. And then of course there’s Hipster, the title assigned these days to anyone not leaving the house in a suit and tie.

I’m actually writing this from a coffee shop on 8th avenue in New York city. Though all the Chelsea queens passing by me right now wouldn’t be caught un-tanned in the things, some of the other, more indie bars are swarming with them. The Phoenix, my all-time favorite gay bar, actually has a cutoffs night advertised around the bar. New York City itself is so steeped in people who dress like the dont give a fuck, and others trying to fit a paradigm, and others still who just know they look good that all the disctinctions blur. 

It’s easy to think I’d do better in a place like New York, if just for the sheer amount of cold, calculated noncomformity it tolerates between and around its dirty rivers. 

But then I’d lose something. Who wants to be in a place where everyone else is just like them? It’s ones differences that make them special. And if everyone’s different? You have to be ordinary to stand out. That’s no way to live. 

I guess it all depends on the company you keep. After I bolted from the housewarming party like Anne Taylor herself was coming after me with scissors to avenge her shredded creations I stopped by another party filled with people I knew and loved. And they didn’t even bat an eye at me. “Hey Zack, come in and get a drink.” I, hairy legs, obnoxious tattoos, shorts that would get me kicked out of a synagogue, just spent the rest of the night sipping whiskey and not worrying about how I looked.

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