PSA

[gwillen]

I will be in the San Francisco Bay area from July 12 to July 19. I'll be staying in the Mountain View area, and looking for housing around there, for August (ideally) or September (less ideally) move-in. If you want to hang out with me while I'm around, or if you have housing tips, or know someone who needs a housemate, reply here. :-)

Comments

[bubblingbeebles.livejournal.com]

you wouldn't wear long pants and long sleeves or a polo?

i can get pretty uncomfortable when asked to wear button-downs, let alone jackets, but business casual has always meant "on the nicer side of what you would wear every day" for me.

[gwillen.livejournal.com]

Ben, I do not even know the difference between "long sleeves" and "button-downs". Given that a fancy restaurant is somewhere I go to be polite and to socialize, not because I expect to get a lot of additional enjoyment out of the food, the additional effort of digging through my closet for clothes that I have not worn in over a year and may not fit, is not worth it to me.

[bubblingbeebles.livejournal.com]

all right, no pressure.

i am surprised, though. what do you wear when you go to restaurants in the winter?

[gwillen.livejournal.com]

I guess maybe you haven't spent enough time in physical proximity to me to gather the usual impression about how I dress. The answer to that, for many years, was "shorts and a t-shirt". The answer these days in a Pittsburgh winter is more likely "pants and a t-shirt." The answer in a California winter will still be "shorts and a t-shirt".

[ikeepaleopard]

This question confuses me. I have the wardrobe and no qualms about dressing up, but when I go to restaurants (except in very special cases) I wear what I happen to be wearing.

p.s. They judge you if you wear khakis and a polo. Rightly so.

[bubblingbeebles.livejournal.com]

what would you wear to a michelin-starred place that said business casual? (what if we were going to quince, instead?)

[ikeepaleopard]

Dark slacks and a button down shirt. This is part of my general theory that khakis and a polo looks good on basically no one.

[bubblingbeebles.livejournal.com]

ok, I mean, I am not a fan of polo shirts either (though I should get some nice dark pants, after all).

i was basically asking to see if gwillen would not wear more than a t-shirt under any circumstances, which is apparently the case. if a place asks me to dress differently for them, I will either go out of my way for it, or not go at all, but I am flexible in making that decision.

[gwillen.livejournal.com]

Well, I took the question as, and responded as, that wearing more than a t-shirt would be going out of my way under any circumstances. There are certainly circumstances under which I would do it, but they revolve more around social requirements than just going to a restaurant to get food. (I.e. if my grandparents asked me to dress up to go to dinner with them, I would do it, as a show of respect and because going to dinner with my grandparents is something I do very rarely. But going to dinner with friends is something I do a lot, and "my friends happen to want a poncy restauraunt tonight" is not enough, when I can happily go with them to a non-poncy restaurant some other night.)

[gwillen.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't think I missed it; I'm just saying I wouldn't go to such a restaurant without some other reason to justify the dressing-up. (I am not inclined to go to one if the only purpose is 'to eat food at a poncy restaurant.)

[bubblingbeebles.livejournal.com]

perhaps i should have asked it that way to begin with. keep in mind that if i am being excitable about a restaurant outing, it usually means the food experience is the primary purpose of the trip.

what would you consider "another purpose" to go? if i said "let's go eat extremely poncy food at this place that has no dress code", would that appeal to you instead?

[gwillen.livejournal.com]

perhaps i should have asked it that way to begin with.

Hmm? You mean, asked if I wanted to go to a poncy restaurant to eat food? That is exactly how I interpreted it to begin with; the only thing I failed to grasp was the connection between poncy restaurants and dressing up, because it has been years since I have had to dress up to go to a restaurant.

what would you consider "another purpose" to go?

To a restaurant which requires dressing up? Some occasion for which I would dress up anyway: a rare visit to extended family, or a wedding or other "serious" special occasion, e.g..

if i said "let's go eat extremely poncy food at this place that has no dress code", would that appeal to you instead?

Yeah, of course. (Modulo subtleties in the meaning of "dress code" of course -- but as long as it is a place where I could wear shorts and a t-shirt without risking being kicked out or seriously sneered at, definitely.)

[bubblingbeebles.livejournal.com]

oh, i think i misinterpreted your I am not inclined to go to one if the only purpose is 'to eat food at a poncy restaurant. as meaning "the only purpose of going to the restaurant" rather than "the only purpose of putting on nice clothes".

[gwillen.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, okay. Yes, I will happily go to a poncy restaurant merely to eat poncy food. I will just not happily dress up in order to do so. Hopefully this clears things up. :-)

[gwillen.livejournal.com]

Also, the bar is raised when I'm not just throwing on an outfit for a night, but carrying an outfit through a 5000 mile round-trip just so I can throw it on for a night.

[ikeepaleopard]

I am willing to cede that they can look decent on certain builds.

I guess I just have a vendetta against them because of the myth told to cs majors that wearing khakis and a polo makes them look adequately dressed up, when typically it just makes them look like they can't dress themselves.

[lindseykuper]

I think that a polo shirt can look better than a button-down shirt on someone who is both large and muscular. On such people, a button-down shirt can look like this while a polo shirt can look athletic and comfortable.

[ikeepaleopard]

Yeah, I was specifically thinking of large muscular dudes as the certain builds I was talking about.