Another day and I’ve got to decide what to wear. It’s the first of many mini crises of my own making, obviously not an actual crisis but enough of a pain that it takes decisional energy. It’s not just an outfit. It’s a representation of myself to the world. It’s enough of a speed bump in my morning that it invites self-analysis. You’re going to wear that? Again? 

As a child I wore a uniform. First through fourth grade, I wore a white polo shirt and navy pants. Then, for fifth and sixth grade, I wore a strict variety of pastel polos (pink, blue, lime) with khakis. Finally in seventh I was able to wear normal clothes, and I remember the terror of having to tight-roll my jeans in the then-correct manner. Back then the jeans to have were the Girbaud brand, which had an alluring label right on the zipper. You could tell who was wearing the right jeans by glancing at their crotch, an adolescent detail which seems a little too symbolically on the nose. 

Now of course I’m purportedly an adult and free to wear what I want. Whenever there is a social function (back when there were social functions) and I ask my wife what I should wear, while staring into the void of my closet, she gives me the Look. It’s a look of primordial exhaustion. It’s admittedly a dumb question because I always wear the same thing, a personality trait that’s conveniently sanctioned by being a male. I can wear the same outfit over and over and no one notices, comments, or cares, whereas being a female, at least according to my admittedly inexpert anecdotal research, entails a much more fraught relationship to clothing and context. Except for perhaps weddings and funerals, I can basically wear this same ensemble every day for the rest of my life. 

That ensemble being khaki pants and a blue button-down shirt. I have essentially been wearing the same outfit for twenty years. Sometimes the shirt is blue-ish. There is often a plaid or check pattern, but it reads as blue. And okay, there are a couple of non-blue shirts in the closet. I have an orange plaid and a red flannel, but these minor deviations underline the relentless sameness: button down and pants. It’s the slightly more adult version of my school uniform. 

And yet, every morning, I think good lord, what am I going to wear today, even though the spectrum of choice is so narrow as to be meaningless. All of it matches, as if anyone cares. All of it is the same level of moderately decently presentable. It’s as if I have subconsciously chosen a uniform in order to alleviate the anxiety of dressing but every morning I somehow forget.

I will be the first to admit that the reason I am attracted to uniforms is because they lessen cognitive load. Here I’ll name check that President Obama anecdote about how he only wore grey or navy blue suits in order to lessen his then-momentous decision making itinerary. I don’t have nearly that amount of decision making to do in a day. Obviously. And I am aware that absolutely no one on the planet cares what I wear to type on my Dell except for myself. And so this is a non-decision decision. And yet. Whenever there is an article about a writer or celebrity or just some public person who wears a uniform, I am eager to read it and access their gestalt. I am a sucker for any kind of simplifying system. The writer Molly Young for a while only wore white. She said it made her look like a large glass of milk and that getting dressed each day was like assembling an easy piece of Ikea furniture. I read this nodding sagely while also thinking: that last bookshelf took me four days. Tom Wolfe rather famously wore all white, but I think even in these polarized times we can still agree that Tom Wolfe was a pretentious clown. The writer Gay Talese doesn’t wear a uniform per se but always wears tailored suits. But his father was a tailor and Talese was born in 1932. Of course he wears bespoke suits. It would almost be a sacrilege not to. The suit as uniform is tempting, an even more formal, even more adult, in some ways easier uniform than what I have helplessly devised. But suits are too out of fashion as far as regular everyday wear. I’m not a banker and even the lawyers now wear those weird leather shoes with the glued-on white sneaker soles. One wants to wear a uniform but one doesn’t want to wear a costume. The distinction seems to be a set of clothes that doesn’t adversely trigger my self-awareness reflexes.

Shouldn’t I be wearing something different? Shouldn’t I try harder? What are other people wearing? Maybe I should just dress as if I were George Clooney. But this is ridiculous. George Clooney is beautiful and I am not. He can wear anything. Insert the conventionally beautiful person of your choosing. My point is that people like Clooney can get away with wearing ridiculous stuff. It’s like when Brad Pitt grows a gnarly beard. Instead I should investigate what the sharply dressed but average-looking people are up to. But in this sense, too, we are a polarized nation. We have the beautiful people and then we have the average masses, unimpeachably wearing leggings and jeans and some sort of shirt thing because it’s comfortable and easy, and what are you, some kind of big shot? Just put on your jeans and grab that pizza. There is another population, the intentionally well-dressed, the forum-goers, the guys who know what “worsted” means, the fellows who have particular thoughts about the differences between the 511 Last and the 65 Last. These guys go from being well-meaning and detail-oriented to stricter than a military cotillion in about three paragraphs. Fashion, which might be the most blatantly arbitrary of signaling environments, quickly becomes codified. And it turns into dudes talking evangelically about gear, which is just Dad Shopping.

(Sometimes I think that the majority of our current problems in the world are caused by the existence of internet forums. The Gamestop bubble and the Capitol riot could be thought of as examples of forum-logic bursting into the real world. Or the “real world,” if you prefer.)

It’s not that I don’t want to be noticed, thought well of, admired for my good taste and sophistication. It’s not that I don’t want to be appreciated. It’s not that I am un-vain. I am as self-absorbedly preening as an adolescent moonwalking with a selfie stick at Disney. But I am also painfully self-conscious. I remember the first time I heard a recording of my speaking voice. I’ve never fully recovered. I admire people who can dress well, trying hard without seeming to try hard. I admire them the same way I admire people who can juggle or do higher level math. What I want really is the most absurd control freak fantasy. I want to be noticed but on my own terms.

I won’t ever wear a Rolex watch, not because I don’t like wildly fancy things or think one shouldn’t spend money on such, but because wearing such a noticeable device would give me fits. It would be like wearing a bat signal of personal wealth, taste, and sophistication. What I want, I’ve decided, is the equivalent of the Honda Civic of everything, not too hot, not too cold. Think of it as normcore as a way of life. When normcore became a brief fad, I believe it meant young, fashionable people wearing white sweatpants and Reeboks ironically. But immediately I felt it as a system after my own dadland heart. I don’t want selvedge denim, shell cordovan double monk straps, a Pappy Van Winkle neat, a Porsche 930, a Klon Centaur. I want the Honda Civic of tennis rackets, running shoes, beers, refrigerators, sweaters. There are too many choices and the differences between them are small enough to be essentially neurotic. I just want the mild-mannered, generally reliable, historically trustworthy choice that I can choose and then run until the wheels fall off, not out of some larger sense of thrift but because using said object until the wheels fall off forestalls yet another painful decision matrix of existential despair. Sing me those 501 Blues, deliver me the Dell Inspiron, the Bass Weejun, the Gibson Epiphone. Mr. Coffee makes it fine enough for me. 

But perhaps my uniform is more like military fatigues or camouflage than I’ve realized. A uniform that’s meant to blend me into my current background. I am not in the jungles of Vietnam or in the Kuwaiti desert. Obviously. I remember when soldiers started wearing the seemingly pixelated tan camouflage. The current background I’m blending into must be generic male with job. It’s a corporate jungle of parking decks and overbuilt planters, VPNs and magnetic identity cards. Read the runes in the whorled cubicle wall. I have been conscripted but in ways I can’t fully perceive. The uniform both is and isn’t a representation of my true self. Today it’s cold and I am wearing a sweater over my blue shirt. There is a man riding a horse swinging a polo mallet embroidered over my left breast. The fact that this grey sweater has this icon is both meaningful and not. I myself have never cared much for horses.