Ralph Lauren Called... He Wants You to Stop Popping Your Collar

Since high school, I've been perfecting the art of fashion and telling my mother, "No, you don't get to buy my clothes anymore." Also since high school, I've popped the collars of my polo shirts. It was semi-cool back then, but I keep it alive as an homage to the 1980s, and as my personal fashion statement.

My family, and my mother especially, have never understood. Back in high school, we had a senior dress-up day where we were supposed to dress up like a past decade. Lois suggested to me, "Core, wear two polo shirts and pop the collars!"

"...Mom, I do that NOW," I responded.

***

Fast forward to the present day. As you've probably seen in my previous posts (and if you haven't, get to it!), I'm a little desperate when it comes to dating. What? You think I'm semi-attractive? Let's go out a couple times! Then, you'll say something stupid and I'll pretend it didn't happen until you finally make me hate your guts. Then I'll ignore you and you'll delete me off Facebook. It's a vicious cycle.

One night, I just happened to log into my Myspace and found a friend request from a boy who was friends with one of my other friends. He seemed nice and we hit it off. So it only seemed natural that we'd meet and try to see if there was chemistry in real time.

Elated, I went into work going on and on about my date that Friday night, causing nausea to overtake everyone in the office. We were scheduled to meet at 7pm that night. 4pm rolled around and my shift had just ended, when my African-American Berry started to vibrate.

"Oh, I just got a text! I bet it's HIM..." I swooned. Jenn and Jillian smirked at each other, because they get a kick out of the young, puppy love stage I always seem to find myself in. Both of them having been in serious relationships for years, they have to laugh at me a little bit. I think it's justified.

"What does it say?" Jenn asked.

"'Hey, can we reschedule? I have an ear infection...'" I read.

Jenn saw the color drain out of my face and offered to go to dinner and a movie with me. I declined and went home to watch chick flicks and cry.

But not all was lost. We rescheduled to go to dinner and a movie. And I had to come up with a plan of attack. I went to the Grace to my Will: Amy.

"Corey, be you. Be loud, be outgoing, be funny, be yourself. What are you wearing?"

"Well, I just bought these new dark jeans, black Chucks, and a black polo."

Amy knows me a little too well. "Popped collar?"

"I don't think so. I don't wanna be TOO MUCH for him..."

"Corey, you need to BE YOURSELF. And that's you! Do it!"

She actually sent me a BBM the night of the date: "Collar popped? ...Good boy."

The date was fun. The conversation was okay, more negativity than I usually like on a first date. I really didn't wanna know about how much he hated his mom, but he was cute and nice to me! And he gave me a big bear hug goodbye and a big kiss on the cheek. It was very kind and conservative, but in a good way. 'Cause I have this bad habit of rushing things...

Later that week, we started talking about what we were going to do that weekend. He changed the subject abruptly and said, "I just have one request."

"Yes?"

"Can you not pop your collar anymore? I don't dig it."

My jaw dropped. "Excuse me?"

"Yeah, I don't like it. Can you stop?"

"...No."

There was silence for a few minutes.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything."

"Uh, well, I'd rather you be honest, but I'm not changing it," I said.

"Oh, okay, my baby pops his collar," he cheered. This was too much for me. We went on one date, and all of a sudden he pulls out the overly-controlling personality trait card and calls me "baby?" Red flags all over that.

A week and a half later, I got an IM from him.

"Hey, why did we stop talking?"

"...Oh, gee, I don't know, because you judged me?"

"Oh, I didn't mean to hurt you!"

I closed the window, so as to not dignify him with a response.

***

I went down a bit of a shame spiral after this, and kept dating loser after loser. I think my best moment was the date I went on a week after that. We went to the Cheesecake Factory and saw that crappy Jonah Hill and Russell Brand movie. Let's just say, the movie didn't hold my attention, and neither did he.

"...Corey, wake up. You're snoring and everyone in the theater is staring."