I was thinking as I was driving into work this morning, that I’d like to try on a different look and see how that affects strangers’ perceptions of me. I’m not talking about parting my hair differently, I’m talking about stepping into a whole different social persona.

I think society recognizes someone’s social identity based on whether someone’s attire fits into a known stereotype. Not to say that you know everything about a person by appearance alone, but you can probably guess certain common traits within the stereotype. Like if I were in leather pants, white wifebeater, big leather jacket, chains, short punkish hair, tattoos, people would say, “Oh, okay, biker chick.” Warm-up pants, tennis shoes, fitted sports top, pony tail, then it’s “She’s athletic.” I certainly do get greeted differently if I walked into a store after work in my suit — namely, I get a lot more “ma’am”s. =P I think that’s why Halloween is such a big deal with women. We get to depart from the “norm” identity and be entirely appearance-mobile, with a great excuse. “Oh, I’m not NORMALLY a slut/naughty nurse/whorish nun/tomato, it’s just my HALLOWEEN costume.” Hmm. Wonder what it says about me that I’ve been wanting to be an anime character for 2-3 Halloweens now but never got the chance.

Anyway, back to what I was saying. I think people are only truly comfortable wearing only a small section of the many possibilities in the attire spectrum, so I wanna step out one day in, like, leather shorts and a low-cut fitted top with a cabbie cap worn sideways, with big hoop earrings, dark lipstick and eye makeup and vixen nail polish, and see how people treat me differently. Or, I guess there are new looks out there these days that the teens are doing? Like “Emo,” which is like our Goth mixed with some punk, and “Scene,” which is like Goth mixed with Cyndi-Lauper-80s attire. Ooh. Maybe I’ll go Goth for a day. Or maybe I’ll be something you guys suggest.

Any suggestions?