An Interlude...

Today at work a well meaning co-worker of mine complimented my shirt with the ill chosen words 'that's a cute top'.

Now I like this shirt. I lovingly call it my 'Xander shirt' in reference to some of his more colorful clothing atrocities on Buffy.  It's a terrible, wonderful mustard yellow, purple, brown, orange, and mauve thing with leaves and swirls and dots that you really have to see to believe.  Like I said, I like the shirt.

Hearing it described as a 'cute top' stunned me a little. In my moment of shock I think I said something surly like 'you mean my shirt?' and getting a dismissive 'shirt, top what's the difference?' in return. I wanted to say that the difference was that women wear tops while... but I think the response would have been confusion.

And so it happens again. My masculinity is shaken by someone's complete obliviousness. The co-worker in question is so guileless that she can blithely ignore my mode of dress, carriage and speech, and see only the woman that my breasts and first name imply to her. And in this state of innocent ignorance, send my fragile sense of self plummeting to spend the remainder of the long day stewing and aching.

I still like the shirt and I won't stop wearing it. But there's a lingering weirdness that I now have to shake from it so that it will go back to being my 'Xander shirt' instead of a 'cute top'.

*sigh*