I am fascinated by the large population of young Irish folks who descend upon the westside of Vancouver every summer. I see them around the neighbourhood and they are as prone to riding the 2 down to Kits Beach as I am.
It’s an interesting anthropology/socially project that for various reasons including culture and visa policies they are here in such numbers.
It is fun to people watch them. There is a particular way that most of the guys dress. Jerseys, mostly fairly Irish, and shorts, often athletic. It’s fun to check out the different jerseys, as a lover of jersey design. I’ve also noticed that I basically dress that way a lot of the time.
Board shorts and a jersey are a great summer attire. Me dressing this way is part of reconnecting with someone I once was and something I loved even though it made me weird. It’s totally normal and fine for them to dress this way but it makes me weird.
I see in them something I felt growing up, that I’m more than happy to dress this way. I was never good at being a girl, at being pretty, at being the things girls ought to be. I was athletic and I do think a whole lot about jerseys.
It’s not that I don’t feel like a girl, I just never really learned how to be a girl.
Frankly, the way teenage boys dress is a lot of what I’d like to wear with some Gina cute animals thrown in.
I both love and hate this about the way they dress. How they get to be normal, at ease in the world. I don’t know if these expectations fit them.
I’d have been expected to be one of the girls, except I was never pretty so I wouldn’t even know where to begin in pulling that off.