Gripping stranger #11: Indie Rock Makeover

Drastic image changes among men fascinate me. In my experience, I've known more women who like to change how they look from day to day or year to year--several women I've known over the years have experimented with different hair colours, clothing styles, and so on, but overall men tend to seem more consistent with the way they attire themselves. But who am I to judge, really. It's literally a Christmas miracle that I am out of bed and at the appropriate destination in the morning, and therefore I consider myself relatively gross-looking on many weekdays and probably underdressed for most occassions, and I would rate my own style of dress as "compotent," but using the strong crutch of a relatively creative job to excuse me of business casual obligations (I am so happy that I can wear jeans, t-shirts, and colourful sneakers to work every day and am prepared to do so for the rest of my life). Anyway. All of this preamble was leading to something. What I'm talking about is you, who has been a gripping stranger through the duration of my undergraduate career as a sociology major at UBC. I believe we might have had a similar academic specialization because I shared a number of classes with you. I remember the Kappa Sigma t-shirts, the awkward bright-white shoes and straight-legged jeans that resembled the wardrobe of a Vancouver Canuck on the offseason, and your predlicition for hanging around with other dudes who seemed to get all the ladies. The perpetual look of excrutiating tentativeness on your face suggested that you had yet to grow into yourself--I think the tendency for people in that stage of their life to glom onto louder, more outgoing friends is common. I was like that in high school. But then, years after graduation, something changed. I would see you every once in a while around the city, evolving slowly into what seemed to be the person you were hoping for all along. It began with a shaggier haircut and grew into skinny jeans and, upon my most recent sighting, a vintage 1970s road bike upon which you zipped along the Seawall on a Sunday afternoon. You had transformed from fraternity member to Main Street hipster in a matter of three years. I wonder if you now feel more comfortable in your own skin, or if you'll always carry that burden of anxiety that seemed to plague you those years ago. I don't find that the core of most people tends to change drastically over time, but it sharpens. I hope at least now your life consists of a better soundtrack.