I had to buy a dress shirt on my own last week. It was confusing.<\/p>\n
Before going out to the store, I let some people at work know about my mission, and told them that I didn’t know what size I was. They suggested that I first go back to my apartment and look at the tag of a dress shirt that I already own. I looked at a few, and they all just had an M<\/em> on the tag, probably for Michael<\/em> or medium.<\/em> I knew that there should have been numbers, but I couldn’t see any. At this point, though, I was pretty confident that I would be able to find at least one line of shirts that would have a letter as its only indication of size.<\/p>\n I headed to Macy’s, which was promised to be “safe.” I didn’t feel immediately threatened when I walked in, but I quickly realized that there are a ton<\/em> of different white dress shirts in that store, with little differentiation beyond the name on the tag. This was somewhat promising though, because I was convinced I could find an M amongst them. The first pile of shirts I looked at gave me hope: I found a tag with an M! Unfortunately, it was an M along with three different numbers. No worries, I thought, just as long as I can confirm that all of the Ms have the same numbers. They didn’t. Onto the next pile.<\/p>\n I went through every stack of white dress shirts in the store, and all of them had those crazy three numbers. At some point in the process, a salesperson called out to the room asking if anyone needed help, but I ignored her offer at the time, hopeful that I would be able to find an unenumerated M and not have to interact with a human being beyond handing over a credit card. When I realized that I would not find this exclusively letter-based sizing, I did what any single man would do in my situation. I went outside and called my mom.<\/p>\n Me:<\/strong> I’m trying to buy a shirt and I don’t know my size. Do you know what my measurements are? At this point, I was resigned to the fact that I would have to be measured. I headed back inside to look for help. One employee was there folding shirts. I don’t shop often enough to know what the proper procedure is in these types of situations, so I didn’t know if I should interrupt her. She was obviously already busy doing something else. I went over to where the counter was and figured I’d just wait in line. After several minutes of waiting for a customer and an employee to discuss a return, I figured I had been in there too long, and couldn’t really spend any more time walking around the store as by now they were probably starting to think I was weird. I headed to Nordstrom.<\/p>\n This time, I walked in with a new attitude. I was going to walk right in there, admit I know nothing, and walk out with a shirt. And I pretty much did that.<\/p>\n Me:<\/strong> I need a white dress shirt and I don’t know my measurements. I was then measured, and headed to the back and got a shirt my size. Before she went to the back room, I let her know that I would also need a tie. “There are ties on all of the tables,” she said, trusting to find something that matched. I picked what appeared to be the only non-pink tie (I would have been fine with pink if I didn’t think that pink ties were a fad on their way out), and brought it to the counter. And by the way, for the little amount of material they use, ties are expensive!<\/p>\n Me:<\/strong> Will this match a dark suit? I obviously know nothing about fashion. That was easy, and kudos to the Nordstrom employee for being so friendly. I don’t really enjoy shopping because I don’t feel confident doing it, but it does feel good to dress nicely.<\/p>\n After all that, I proudly presented my wardrobe to my parents only to learn that I was wearing the wrong pants.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I had to buy a dress shirt on my own last week. It was confusing. Before going out to the store, I let some people at work know about my mission, and told them that I didn’t know what size I was. They suggested that I first go back to my apartment and look at … Continue reading Sleeves<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wysz.com\/wyszdom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wysz.com\/wyszdom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wysz.com\/wyszdom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wysz.com\/wyszdom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wysz.com\/wyszdom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wysz.com\/wyszdom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1644\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wysz.com\/wyszdom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wysz.com\/wyszdom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wysz.com\/wyszdom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nMom:<\/strong> No, just ask them to measure you.
\nMe:<\/strong> Can’t I just get a medium? The shirts in my closet are medium, but in the store they have three numbers. What do they mean? There’s one at the top, and then two below it.
\nMom:<\/strong> It’s the neck and sleeve size.
\nMe:<\/strong> But there are three numbers. One at the top…
\nMom:<\/strong> That’s the neck.
\nMe:<\/strong> And then two at the bottom.
\nMom:<\/strong> The sleeves.
\nMe:<\/strong> But there are two numbers.
\nMom:<\/strong> That’s the sleeve length.
\nMe:<\/strong> The sleeves are different sizes?
\nMom:<\/strong> No.
\nMe:<\/strong> But there are two numbers on the bottom.
\nMom:<\/strong> It’s a range.
\nMe:<\/strong> They have to estimate the length of the sleeves? They can’t measure that within an inch? Don’t we have the technology?
\nMom:<\/strong> Ask someone to measure you.
\nMe:<\/strong> I don’t like to be poked.
\nMom:<\/strong> [sends an eye-roll from 3,000 miles away]
\nMe:<\/strong> I’ll also need a tie.
\nMom:<\/strong> Just tell them that you have a dark suit and you need a white shirt and a tie.<\/p>\n
\nHer:<\/strong> Trim?
\nMe:<\/strong> [Having no idea what this means] Sure.<\/p>\n
\nHer:<\/strong> Charcoal? Gray? Black?
\nMe:<\/strong> [My mom said “dark suit!” Trying to think of what my suit looks like…] Black.
\nHer:<\/strong> Oh, yes, that will look very nice. You picked a good one. This is a [says some brand name that I can’t remember] tie. They last forever. One customer always buys these kind of ties and says that he’ll be able to give them to his son when he’s older.<\/p>\n