I could see his nipples.
That was all I could think about. The fact that I could see his nipples where his shirt was gaping between the buttons. His shirt that was too tight, proven by the fact that I wasn’t just able to see his nipples through that gaping hole but also through the shirt itself. Small hillocks that peeped out through his shirt as if to say, “Hello! I’m in here!”
It’s not that he was an unpleasant/ugly/unattractive guy. He was in fact lovely, a great conversationalist, friendly, amiable and I’m sure his nipples were friendly fellows as well. But I didn’t want to see them. They were being forced on me by this too-tight shirt. They were coercing me to simultaneously look and look away in a way that made me feel uncomfortable.
This was not a solitary occasion. Why is it that when I walk down the corridors of my workplace I am assaulted by the vision of too-tight shirts on every corner? Nipples and pectoral outlines as far as the eye can see. Pectoral outlines are great but sometimes you want to just walk down a corridor and be faced with a sea of amorphous blobs.
There’s been a distinct migration in the last few years from looser dress shirts to tighter dress shirts. It’s part of this whole male fashion revolution that’s been occurring. Suddenly, every working man under the age of 40 is extremely conscious of what they are putting on their body. They want their pants slim-cut, their shoes patent and pointy, their hair with visible comb striae and their shirts tight.