agonyaunt | (no subject)

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From the Carolyn Hax chat:

Should I comment on altered appearance?

A technician who has serviced out HVAC system for 15 years came today. He was wearing hoop earrings, mascara, eyeliner, eye shadow and lipstick. My first thought was "that's a little dramatic for daytime wear." I know that he is married and has adult children. I didn't comment on his transformation. He'll be back in six months -- should I say something then?

Carolyn Hax

"That's a great color on you." (Translation: You're safe here.) Otherwise, no.

[isa comment: I love CH's reply, no notes! but am eyebrowing hard at the LW, especially for "dramatic" and the relevance of marriage/kids]

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I'm also side-eyeing the LW's tone about this.

Carolyn's response boils down to "If you can't say something nice/accepting that indicates THIS PERSON GENUINELY IS SAFE WITH YOU, don't say anything at all" . . . but the LW doesn't come off as super-safe or capable of managing their snark.

(BTW, "hoop earrings, mascara, eyeliner, eye shadow and lipstick" -- you mean, what many cis women wear for daytime, and often are *expected* to wear in order to appear "professional" or "put together"? Dramatic for daytime? Hmmmm.)

(BTW, "hoop earrings, mascara, eyeliner, eye shadow and lipstick" -- you mean, what many cis women wear for daytime, and often are *expected* to wear in order to appear "professional" or "put together"? Dramatic for daytime? Hmmmm.)

I have never heard anyone comment on Johnny Depp's eyeliner as being too dramatic for the high seas, either, come to think of it 🤣 Or asking "why is he wearing a face full of make up on the high seas? Isn't he just going to sweat it all off within the first hour??? That seems like a *ton* of effort. What is happening here?"

If his wingtip is fly, ask him if he knows any good tutorials.

Sincerely,
Wingtips are goals

I'm not sure I understand the question. Does LW think the person might be unaware of their own appearance? Like maybe they tripped and fell into a puddle of makeup and jewelry and need to be discreetly informed that it stuck to them? (Perhaps the same for the wife and kids?)

I do actually get that there might be an etiquette issue here - like, this person totally changed their look, is it rude to ignore or rude to mention?

but LW is coming from such a judgey place, I think it's clear they shouldn't say anything!

I think what LW is really asking - the reason they wrote to an advice columnist about a brief encounter with someone they only see every 6 months and have no personal relationship with - is this:

"I wanted to be mean to this guy I saw doing his job and not harming me in any way, but I thought any words I said might incriminate me. Can you give me a script that expresses my disapproving sneer verbally, but still gives me plausible deniability about being a bigot? So that I can be mean to people but if anyone complains, I can pretend that they're oversensitive and crazy and reading things into what I said."

Which Carolyn appropriately shut down hard.

I suspect they disapprove of Man Wearing Makeup, but also the wife/kids mention makes me suspect they think makeup means he's gay and/or trans and therefore ... something idk.

They definitely come across as "how do I criticize without looking rude?".

Dear LW:

someone capable of honestly complimenting the HVAC tech could do so. You should staple your judgy mouth shut. Thank you.

Sincerely,
the rest of us.

I sometimes have encounters like this and wonder how I can make comments that will show I that I've noticed the person's changed gender expression and am supportive and a safe person. However, I'm a man and autistic and don't want to come off as creepy or like I'm hitting on them. I have no idea how to be flirtatious and therefore am always worried I might be inadvertently, so veer on the side of not doing anything that could remotely be perceived that way, which means never complimenting anyone on their appearance, for the most part.

I also have a trans history myself, so could always make some kind of comment about how freeing it is to start expressing yourself in different ways. But I'm not sure how this would come across, as I'm pretty much always read as a cis man, and I'm not always comfortable outing that part of my history to strangers.

It is fraught isn’t it? I find “ you look nice” nonthreatening in general but it might feel not sufficiently specific.

I just can't imagine how annoying it is for lw to spend lots of time around women if they have strong opinions about how much makeup and jewelry constitute overdressed, because I mean, statistically, you're going to find a lot more of them in that demographic.

Edited (Autocorrect) 2023-07-01 12:29 (UTC)

Oh and also, if you're curious and think they might have dressed up, as opposed to just assuming they have started a new habit of dressing up all the time... you can say something like "You look fancy! Are you going somewhere special?"

tbh I assumed LW _was_ a woman, because the percentage of men who know and can tell the difference between mascara and eyeliner is so much smaller than the percentage of women, so noticing that the HVAC tech had both on would be much more unusual from a man than from a woman.

Same. There's no other clue in the letter, but it seems most likely.

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