If You Show Me Yours...by JED

(So you don't get bored of us, every week we post something sent to us by a reader or coerced out of friends and family. Could be a question, a letter, a poll, a picture...we're flexible. See below for this week's If You Show Me Yours post, and see the sidebar for info about how to participate!)

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The New Sophisticate

Before this summer actually got under way, I spent a little time trying to get my “beach body” ready. I stopped eating chocolate-chip muffins at work. I worked out once or twice. Got the rollerblades rolling. Then summer arrived. I packed up the kids, headed for the neighborhood pool, and lost my resolve.

I lost my resolve because the fact is, unless you are Brad Pitt or Justin Chambers, if you show up at the pool with your kids, nobody cares about your abs. It turns out that abs are for young people. And it’s not just abs - summer is for young people. Summer is for slouching around in board shorts, sunglasses, and flip flops, and it is for young people.

For old people like myself (and by old person I mean over the age of 25, with children) summer is a tricky business. What I realized on that first day at the pool is that Summer is the season where old people dress exactly like young people. It’s the same bathing suits, sunglasses, and flop flops. It’s the same casual style. The difference is we make it look bad.

I’m not sure why this is, exactly. I certainly couldn’t pinpoint the moment I stopped looking cool in board shorts, and started looking like my wife was buying my clothes at Target while she was out picking up more diapers and tupperware storage bins (though probably it was when my wife started buying my clothes at Target while she was out picking up more diapers and tupperware storage bins), but I have a theory. And, like every good theory, it has a relevant sports analogy; we are playing their game.

Old people look bad when they dress like young people. It is a fact of life. The problem is that most of the time, and particularly in the summer, we don’t know what to do about it. Even if I admit that I don’t look as good in board shorts as I used to (which I generally refuse to do), but assuming that I refuse to dress like I buy exclusively at the country club’s pro shop, what can I do?

I happened to be thinking about this question when I saw this video by the Congolese rapper Balogi, and caught a glimpse of the solution:

LE JOUR D'APRES / SIKU YA BAADAYE (INDEPENDANCE CHA-CHA) from BALOJI on Vimeo.

Here is a group of people who are clearly hot (it’s the Congo) and have still made the effort to look sophisticated. OK, it’s a video, but the point remains. These people are dressing like grown-ups, and they look good. I am dressing like a college student, and I no longer do. So the hard realization is this; it is time to acknowledge that I am a grown up, and start working harder. Not just in the summer, but in general.

It’s not going to be easy. I am a sculptor by trade, and a mess by inclination. But there are no excuses. If they can wear suits in a club in the Congo, I can dress it up a little here in suburban Philadelphia. Because here’s what I’ve realized; sophistication is our game.

Young people don’t look sophisticated because they can’t. They slouch. They slump. They hook up in the backseats of cars, or on the couch. They stay out late, and roll out of bed at the last minute. They don’t take care of their things. They certainly don’t drop off the dry cleaning on Tuesday so they can have something to wear Saturday.

And even if all of that weren’t true it wouldn’t matter. In the end, the reason young people can’t appear sophisticated is because they aren’t. However nicely they may treat their things, or how much dry cleaning they might pick up, they aren’t self aware enough to present themselves confidently to the world. And that, to me, is a pretty good definition of the word.

As for me, I’m working on it. Thrown out a few things, done a little shopping, bought a steamer. Does that mean I’ll figure out how to present myself to the world with the confidence born of adulthood? I’ll keep you posted.