Splendid Isolation

Dalrymple talks about how everyone’s all concerned about self-esteem, but completely lacking in self-respect.

Not only do people fail to make the most of themselves, they seem determined to make the worst of themselves, as if they were setting a challenge to others not to remark on them or pass a judgment about the way they look.

Actually, it’s worse than that. People are so caught up in their self-esteem that they think it’s more important than self-respect — in other words, that how they feel about themselves is more important than how others feel about them, and missing the point that both are important.

T.D. talks about clothing:

In England, fat young women (of whom there are lamentably many) squeeze themselves into unbecomingly tight costumes, like toothpaste into a tube. It is as if they were intimidating you into not noticing how hideous they look.

Well, yes;  it’s the classic mark of the narcissist.  And that attitude is just as prevalent in these here United States.

Look, I understand all that:  goths, hippies, biker gangs, Mods ‘n Rockers (yeah, I’m dating myself badly here) and all the so-called fashion trends that bedevil every generation.

All of them, however, have one thing in common:  they denote that the wearers are societal misfits.

Since I passed the age of adolescence, where such nonsense was important, I’ve always had one or the other of these self-imposed restraints on myself whenever I leave the house:  would my Mom / wife / grandfather be ashamed to be seen in public with me, dressed as I am? 

If the answer is even marginally “yes”, I change my outfit.

And quite frankly, if there’s anyone who doesn’t give a rat’s ass what anyone thinks of me, that would be me.  But I care, deeply, about what my close family and -friends think of me, and that reflects itself in many aspects of not only my dress but also in my behavior.

Alone with my male buddies, I’m a total lout.  In polite company, I’m a different person altogether.

It is the habit of a lifetime, drilled into me by parents, boarding school, the army and wives;  and frankly, I’m too old to change my ways now.

In a business setting, for example, I’m always well-dressed (suit, tie, polished shoes and all that) and likewise groomed (neat hair, trimmed beard, clean-shaven and nice-smelling).

So when I go to a company and see a bunch of men with scraggly beards, clothing which looks like they were slept in and with body odor to gag a vulture, I honestly don’t care about their self-esteem;  I just find them repulsive — and no matter what, I can’t take them seriously.

Judgmental?  You bet your fucking life I am.