Guys who wear earrings – A woman’s perspective

Happy Belated Birthday and welcome to your thirties!  Here’s how I’m picturing you–a tiny silver or gold hoop in each ear that you’ve rarely taken out since you got them pierced, yes?  I see a lot of guys with this look–usually a bit older than you, maybe 35 or 40–and I always think the earrings have ceased to be intentional.  What I mean by that is everything else you wear is chosen and changed on a daily basis.

Let’s assume you care about style (otherwise what the heck are you doing here?), in which case you stand in front of your closet in the morning and think about how you feel and what your schedule is like.  Then you choose a pair of stylish yet comfortable loafers because you’ll be at the office but you’ll be running between floors for different meetings.  You pick a pair of perfectly pressed pants, but the ones with a little extra room in the gut because you’ve been feeling self-conscious about gaining some extra holiday pounds and you don’t want to be straining against the waistband all day.

The sweater you decide on is red and has toggle clasps, simply because today feels like a red, toggly day.  You pick socks that match and the right coat, and a watch that picks up the undertones in the sweater.

Guess what’s missing from this series of choices?  You got it–the earrings.  Like most of the double-pierced fellas out there, I’m guessing you don’t change the earrings every morning depending on the rest of your outfit, or what you are in the mood for.   The earrings are always there, so they’ve become like your eyebrows–you probably don’t notice them every time you look in the mirror.

Look, here’s the quick and dirty: a guy with an earring in each ear, especially if it’s a simple hoop, just looks dated to me.  I’d probably expect such a guy to also be wearing carpenter jeans an inch too short, the white athletic socks showing underneath, and carrying a copy of Reality Bites on VHS.  That’s my opinion, which, of course, is what you wrote in for.  But I think the bigger “lesson” here, boys and girls, is that it’s important to make sure that all the elements of your style are intentional, not something you simply default to because you’ve ceased to notice them on a daily basis.

I’m taking next week off in anticipation of Christmas.  Happy Holidays!

Santa, if you’re reading this, I’m still in the market for a multi-strand pearl opera night bracelet… not that I ever go to the opera, but you know, maybe I would if I had the bracelet.