Do you think first impressions are everything, and would you be turned off if you showed up for a date with someone, only to discover that they were dressed in filthy, old clothes?
This 27-year-old woman recently saw a guy for a second date after she originally met him through an app. She has a job in a professional engineering firm, so it’s normal for her to get dressed up.
When she’s off the clock, she still makes herself look nice because it’s something that she values. So, for her second date with this guy, they made plans to go to a fancy cocktail bar located in the downtown area where they live.
She invested a good amount of time doing her makeup, and she put on a beautiful dress, as she wanted to impress him. She arrived at the bar first, and after this guy walked in, her jaw hit the floor over what he had on.
“He was wearing a wrinkled t-shirt that had a very visible coffee or grease stain near the collar and some old cargo shorts with beat-up sneakers,” she explained.
“It felt really weird sitting there in a nice dress while he looked like he [had] just finished working on a car or crawled out of a gaming marathon. The thing that makes it confusing is that he was actually incredibly sweet, and the conversation was great.”
“We talked about a lot of shared interests, and he seemed genuinely interested in my life and my career. But I could not stop looking at that stain and wondering why he didn’t think it was worth five minutes to change into a clean shirt before meeting me at a mid-range bar.”
She thinks it’s considerate to put a little effort into your appearance. And since this was just the second time she had met this man, she really thought he would have wanted to do better with his outfit choice.
While she doesn’t want to come across as superficial, and she would hate to miss out on a wonderful guy due to his shirt, she’s concerned this is a sign of how he will act in the future if she keeps on seeing him.
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She’s conflicted over whether he might have bad hygiene or if he was just being a vapid guy who just carelessly grabbed a shirt, any shirt, and didn’t spot the stain on it.
“I really liked his personality, but the lack of effort in such a public setting makes me feel like I am not being taken seriously. Should I bring it up to him or just wait and see how he dresses for a third date, if there even is one?” she asked.
“I don’t want to be the girl who nags about clothes, but it just felt so lopsided in terms of energy spent preparing for the evening.”
I am not viewing her as shallow for wanting him to match her effort and try to charm her by looking put together. Dating is supposed to mean you put your best foot forward, and since he isn’t doing that with his outfit, it very well could be a red flag.
The only way to know for sure is to go out on another date with him, and she could ask him to wear something more respectable. There’s nothing wrong with doing that, and if she does like him so far, his outfits can be worked on if he doesn’t really know how to dress himself by now.
What do you think?
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By Bre Avery Zacharski
Hi, I'm Bre, Chip Chick's CEO! I have a degree in Textile/Surface Design from The Fashion Institute of Technology, and... More about Bre Avery Zacharski
