OU men: Put more pep in your step with style sense

Hey, you there in the free T-shirt. Yeah, you. You know you look like crap, right? I’ve seen you around campus, wearing your beat-up tennis shoes and mom pants. You blow off your appearance like it doesn’t matter, but you’re just lying to yourself. Appearances do matter, and I’ll let you in on why.

People make snap judgments based on exterior characteristics, particularly clothing, but that’s common knowledge. If I ask you to point out the richest guy in a crowd of strangers, you’ll almost certainly point to the best-dressed guy, probably one in a suit. The smartest guy? Probably a man with glasses and a more academic outfit. We associate characteristics with appearances and just stick them on as we go. Sometimes they get altered, but rarely do they radically change. Do you want that cute girl you’ll meet tomorrow to think you’re a lazy slob? Then don’t dress like one!

Okay, so let’s assume you’ve decided to change things up a bit. You’ve got your nice dress shirt on, a pair of slick Vans and that pair of jeans that actually make your butt look nice. You step out onto the South Oval feeling like you’re now the sexiest dude on the walk. You look good, and you know it. That’s a serious shot of confidence. But guess what? That feeling doesn’t really go away. Dressing well is a sure way to put some confidence in that stride. As they say, “the clothes make the man,” and what a man!

As you go through that first day of randomly dressing well, you’ll most likely get a few compliments, and I can almost guarantee you they will be mostly from women. How do I know this? Women, as a general rule, care about how they look. They do their makeup, they do their hair, they try on a thousand things before deciding on what they wore last time and all with a single goal in mind: looking their best. We guys tend to give women crap about taking forever, but they know about trying to look nice. And because they know how much effort it can sometimes take, they appreciate it when a guy actually puts forth the effort.

Mind blowing, right? Well, this doesn’t only apply to women. Any guy who regularly tries to look nice appreciates seeing the same thing in other people, and that includes your professors, employers, etc. There aren’t many people who will hate on you for dressing well, but plenty will appreciate you for it — and most of them are the ones you want to impress.

So what are you waiting for? Go forth and style it up, my friend! But don’t think you need to jump in suit-first. Just care about what you wear and start small. I bet that cute girl you’ll see tomorrow would totally approve of a polo and maybe a pair of khakis…

Buck Roberson is a classical languages junior.