Sometimes I wish I was a girl

Life I went clothes shopping today. I’m not particularly good at clothes. It’s like anything else – there’s a language to it, knowing what suites you, what the fashion is, what’s available, and unless you've studied, or immersed yourself ... I think I briefly understood for about two weeks in 1997 but soon lost it and now I tend to just wear a white t-shirt and jeans everywhere. To the point that if I wear anything else people notice. I know this isn’t a good thing by any stretch of the imagination, and there is a certain laziness involved, but it’s also because the very nice clothes always cost very nice prices and never really having had much money ever in life, I still baulk at the prices. I think it's genetic. Not even Hadley Freeman could convince me that £35 is a decent price for a jumper even though I know intellectually that everyone from the designer to the manufacturer to the people working in the shop and the shop’s landlord have to be paid.

Not having a clue what this season’s colour is, I decided it was blues and greens and bought long sleeve t-shirt and a light green jumper from department stores, plus ordered a grey jumper from M&S. I think they suite me. It’s that long since I have seen anything remotely like a colour on my torso I’m hazarding a guess that they do. They don't look horrible, which is a start. Walking about I tried to see what other men, my peers, were wearing and was placated by the fact that actually, none of them seemed to know what they were doing. Only now and then did anything seem to match, only now and then did I think – if only I had his style. Plus most people with my age and frame of mind would have been working in an office whilst I was out and about which means the comparisons I was making were generally with students who’re a whole decade younger than me and surely there’s a generational detachment?

It won’t end here. At the age of 34 (which I will be at the end of October) I should be more conscious of what I look like. Sometimes I wish I was a girl, if only because you seem to have a much bigger choice of what you can wear and in fact you can also wear man clothes if they suit you. With us its jeans or trousers, t-shirts or shirts, v-neck or crop and a jacket or coat. Perhaps a scarf. You can make yourselves look amazing even in winter. Glancing through the many shops I strolled through today, I saw clothes that I couldn’t imagine anyone wearing, with outrageous printing, jumpers with part of kind of fake t-shirt sewn around the neck hole and perfectly good jumper with fabric attachments added in places which will inevitably mean they'll be ripped off when passing a door handle. That's assuming they even fit my body shape, so closely does it mimic a brontosaurus. I'm probably incurable.