Cufflinks and Pink Shirts

One of the first things I noticed moving here was that British like to dress up. Well, let me rephrase that. The guys in IT would dress up more than the IT guys in Chicago. Perhaps its the whole culture thing about being proper but everyone would wear "trousers" and "shirts" and look really "smart." The first thing I noticed is that the guys would wear really nice shirts with cufflinks.

The only time I ever wear cufflinks is when I'm wearing a tux. I honestly didn't own any shirts that need cufflinks.

Until recently. I finally bought a "double cuff" or "French cuff" shirt from Thomas Pink. And yes, it was pink. Pink stripes actually.

There wasn't a better time to wear the shirt with a very important meeting to start off the week. Not only that, but it was the first day in my "new role." The timing couldn't have been better.

After my meeting and a couple hours of walking around and schmoozing with coworkers I noticed a trend. There was something different.

You ever talk to someone and they don't look you straight in the eye, but rather other parts of your body? I mean, they start looking at you straight in the eye, but then their eyes wander off, to lets say that big zit on your forehead, or your hair because you haven't cut it, or perhaps you have and it just basically looks like crap. Or if you are talking to a beautiful women and you stare at her.. oh nevermind..

Anyway, I found that happening when I was wearing my pink shirt and French cuffs. Maybe its because I hardly dress up like that? Maybe it was the pink shirt? It seemed to me, at least, that everyone was staring at my French cuffs and cufflinks. At first I thought it was just me with the first couple of people I was talking too, but then it was a recurring theme throughout the day.

I started to get paranoid because I was afraid that I put my cufflinks on wrong. So I looked at my other colleague's cufflinks and tried to stare at his wrists to see how he had put them on. I had to do this discretely. Why? Because its wierd looking at people's wrists!

I look at his cufflinks then I looked at mine. I was really getting self-conscious. I think its because it was one of the first times I wore it without getting dressed up in a tux. Then I slowly convinced myself. How in the hell is it possible to put on cufflinks the wrong way!

Then at the end of the day, one of my colleagues went up to me and pointed out that I did indeed put them on wrong. How embarrassing.