October 10, 2004

The Gift That Keeps Giving

As you can probably tell by the sudden frequency of posts to my blog, it's midterm season and I'm desperately seeking out activities to avoid reading about dead French mathematicians and their horribly involved mathematical findings. As much as I like Fourier, LaPlace, and company, I thought I'd take a break to write about my gift, or rather, curse, that keeps on giving - giving it to me.

Now you only have to have met me briefly to realize that I'm someone for whom excess eating has never been a particular problem. Standing a couple inches above six feet and weighing a more or less constant 145 lbs. provides me with the certain luxury of being able to eat whatever the hell I want and not worry about packing on the extra pounds. In fact, try as I might, I can't really gain weight. Don't worry - I'm not going to complain about this fact; it's pretty cool knowing I won't be the subject of any fat jokes any time soon. However, the speedy metabolism, constant work, and general disdain for food doesn't come for free and in recent times, I've realized how expensive being skinny can be.

Presumably, you can imagine that buying clothing has never been a particularly easy task for me, as American standards of body size dictate I should be around 190 lbs. on average. Nevertheless, until now, only buying loose-fitting casual clothing, I had a certain degree of flexibility, and usually avoided any significant bullshit. This complacent shopping experience changed rather abruptly last month when I went to buy a new suit for the upcoming recruiting period. The flexibility in the interpretation of fitting gone, I finally had to confront the enviable speedy metabolism that has kept me so skinny.

Trips to one high-priced store after another have yielded one conclusion from all the fashion consultants - I've got a very European body type. Now, the big question is, what the hell does that mean? Last I checked, I was Indian. Well, whatever it is supposed to mean aside, what this statement translates into, according to all the people who purportedly know, is that in my choice of business clothing, I'm limited to three designers: Armani, Hugo Boss, and Versace. Great! That's awesome. Not only do I need to frivilously spend money on dress clothing when I could be buying cool electronic gadgets, but now I have to buy unnecessarily overpriced and hyped up clothing because it's the only thing that will fit? The resounding answer seems to be, Yes. Sorry.

Most people buy from designers such as the ones listed above for one of two reasons: either they can afford to or they want to appear as though they can. I buy from those designers because I have to. As a college student looking for a first job, I can neither afford nor have any desire to wear such expensive clothing. What I want is a moderately priced wardrobe that doesn't detract from my pursuit of more important things, namely electronic goods. Ironically, the very things that allow me to save up money - lots of work and a small appetite - are the ones causing me to waste even more money. I'm serious this time - I need to gain weight! I can't afford not to!