I Wore a Controversial Outfit Last Night

I haven’t lost all of my divorce trauma. I carry it with me. I’m still 20 pounds over my normal weight. It makes me conservative. I don’t wear some of the sassier outfits I used to wear.

Until last night.

I wore a sexier shirt.

Why? Not sure. Maybe I am feeling more like myself. Maybe I’ve lost a few more pounds. Maybe it’s dating. Maybe it’s whatever. Maybe I just miss wearing the fun outfits I used to wear.

I went to meet a group of people for my friend’s birthday.

We met in the restaurant/bar attached to my building.

I was walking toward the bathroom as an older woman in my building was leaving. I knew exactly what she was thinking. She’s not used to seeing me in a top like this.

“Are you trying to pick up a man tonight?” she asks.

“Nope,” I say.

“That top is trashy,” she says.

Okay, enough said. To be fair, it was not an outrageous top. There wasn’t any cleavage but it was a sexy top. It had a bare shoulder on one side and cut outs going down the arm on the other.

I get back to my friends.

“What do you think of this top?” I say.

“It looks great,” they say.

“It’s not trashy?” I ask.

“No,” they say.

I agree. I wouldn’t wear a top I felt was trashy. I might jokingly call it my ‘chasing my youth’ shirt. But I’m a smart ass. I’m always joking.

Later that night, I leave to meet a friend at another bar.

A man approaches me.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” he says. “I’m not available so I’m not hitting on you but as soon as you walked in I thought you looked beautiful. I couldn’t stop staring I think you look like a beauty queen. You’re wearing Lainey Wilson type jeans and your shoulders look amazing. I had to come over and tell you.”

He didn’t stop there.

He went on and on.

I’m laughing hysterically.

I’m sure I confused him. The average woman probably doesn’t burst into laughter after a compliment. But this one does because I’m a realist. I absolutely knew it was the top.

“C’mon,” I say to my friend. “We go out all of the time. You’ve seen men come up to me. Have you ever seen a man that over the top? It’s the top.”

She’s laughing.

Our other friend tells me it’s not the top.

She things my hair looks prettier than usual. She thinks my makeup looks better. She even goes so far as to say she thinks my teeth look whiter.

“Oh for God’s sake,” I say. “My hair looks like it normally does and so does my makeup. This is about the top.”

We all laugh.

“This is my Monica Lewinsky top,” I say. “I’m never getting rid of it because tonight I’m a beauty queen.”

“You need to tell our friend who said it was trashy,” says my friend.

Today I ran into that friend in our building who said it was trashy. She laughed. She said she can be brutal sometimes and that she really didn’t mean it. It wasn’t trashy.

I told her it didn’t matter.

“It turns me into a beauty queen.”

And I’ll take a trashy beauty queen ny day.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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