Sweats vs. Stilettos

When I was in college, I first noticed a strange phenomenon regarding the way in which women dressed and how men responded to them. For a week at St. Pats our school would “Green Up” since St. Patrick was the patron saint of engineers and my school was primarily engineering. This included these Kelly green sweatshirts that were the standard uniform for the week, and many other chilly days during the year. They were very unique to the campus. What would happen, then, during this week is that the entire campus would proceed to get drunk and party- they even gave us two days off to do this. Activities began early in the morning and lasted until early in the morning. Due to this fact, it was entirely possible for the students to start off in the day time with the jeans and sweatshirts and end the evening in the same jeans and sweatshirts.

Also during this time, there would be visitors to the campus from other schools in the surrounding areas. At night, the local bar or fraternity parties would have girls showing up in their hot pants, tight skirts, slinky tops and clear indication that they were not “Rolla Girls”. The ratio at my school was 5 guys to 1 girl so the logical thought here was that the men would love this change from their standard fare. Taking a look at these girls all decked out and shiny compared to the slightly disheveled, drunk Rolla girl wearing a green sweatshirt (or some other comfortable clothing), one would think the rolla girls would get ignored. Invariably though, this wasn’t the case. These men would talk to the out of towner girls for a little while and come racing back to the Rolla women. This was not simply out of friendship either. It occurred time and time again that at the end of the night, these girls would be shuffled off drinking their wine coolers to pass out somewhere, while the Rolla girls were still up hanging with the boys and getting all the attention and flirting.

Fast forwarding a few years to life after college, and this behavior is still remarked upon. I’ve heard it several times from many of my girlfriends.


“Why is it that when I look my worst, when I’m all scruffy and not dressed up, is when I get hit on the most.”

I believe that the first initial answer to this question is that a man can see you as you really look and makes the judgment at that time if he can accept you “at your worst.” But I don’t believe that to be true at all. A man will judge whether he will hook up with you at your worst or your best and there really isn’t much different in between. Short of looking absolutely slovenly, of course. I’m not talking about the not showering for days kind of look (although I hear camping can be an adventure in that area).

I think the answer lies in the demeanor of the woman, and that is what a man finds so appealing. The confidence we have to just be ourselves when we’re not trying to impress anyone and just want to have fun. When we get all “dolled up” we tend to be wearing tight, but cute, shoes that invariably rub some spot on our feet. Or we have a shirt or skirt that has to be constantly adjusted to make sure a body part isn’t popping out too far. Tights/hose have to be yanked up and our hair has to be brushed and make up reapplied during the evenings out in order to maintain the “look” that we have going for us.

When we end up going out in our “just bumming it” look, we don’t care about these things. We think that we’re not looking hot so there is really nothing we can do about it at that point so we don’t have to worry about the clothing factor and can just have a good time. Men pick up on this vibe. We’re relaxed and can engage with them more.

Another key thing is that we are more approachable. A man walks in and sees a woman dressed to the nines and acting like it or he looks around and sees another girl smiling in a tshirt, jeans and sneakers at a bar. Remember- a smile is the biggest invitation to a man right off the bat.

Women don’t only dress up for men either, we dress up for each other- the competition. When we aren’t dressed up, we fall off that radar of direct competition with the other women in the room. We aren’t a threat to them directly, so for the comfortable girl, she doesn’t get the added pressure of feeling self conscious with the other women in the room. She already KNOWS she isn’t measuring up and she accepts it.

There are the rare women who look good in everything and at every time and do it naturally. Whether they deal with self confidence issues or not, I don’t know.
But for the rest of us, just think about it the next time you go out. If it’s a Friday night and you know everyone is going to be dressed up- take the time to consciously dress down and see what kind of attention you get. I’m not advocating that we do this all the time, however, for we have to go through the pain of dressing up at times to really fall into the understanding of how comfortable it is not too- and that is the confidence that will attract the men we want.