The beginning of skirting

[Bravehearts.us]

I talked before about the start of my skirting and how it all began. Here is a picture from those early days. It started with a cotton skirt from Goodwill for $5. As I said before, the only kilt I could find cost about $700 and I wasn’t sure at that time if I was just going through a phase. I didn’t want to spend that kind of money on a kilt that might have been worn for a month and then the phase was over with. So I opted for the $5 pleated, plaid skirt just to play it safe. Back then most people didn’t know the difference. I can’t tell you how many times people asked, “what’s up with the kilt?”
Back then I went through the fears that any “newbie” goes through, only to find out, as the old timers know, that nothing bad happened except in my own head. Just thought I would share this with you for laughs. Believe it or not, the shoes were high top patent leather!
(Boy was I in such better shape then! Nothing like being young and healthy!!!)
Lar
http://www.bravehearts.us/images/Lar1983.jpg

[binx]

Looks great, actually! I have the first cotton King Kilt from eBay that looks similar. I think that most people would still say that's a kilt. Those high tops look good, too.

binx

[AMM]

Back then I went through the fears that any ?newbie? goes through, only to find out, as the old timers know, that nothing bad happened except in my own head.

I'm still going through those fears.

Coming to terms with those fears is involving my realizing just how much I have warped my life to conform to what I thought other people required of me, or what it would take to get them to accept me. (The process of my divorce made me realize how much I had done this in our marriage.)

I'm now looking back on my life and realizing:

1. Doing my best to conform to what other people wanted didn't make anyone accept me more (not as though I was all that good at conforming.)
   
   The folks that accept me seem perfectly willing to accept all my wierdnesses (you know, the stuff that caused my classmates to call me "queer" and refuse to have anything to do with me.)
   
   And the other folks already have their lives filled up.
2. Most people are too busy with their own mishegoss to worry much about what you're doing, except as it impacts them.
3. Their are an awful lot of people out there that like "wierd" people. If you're considerate and full of life and enjoy being with them, they don't demand that you be a certain way, and they'll forgive a lot, too. And, now that I'm not in high school, I don't have to spend much time with the folks who aren't like that.

But it's really hard to stop thinking in the Old Ways -- that everybody in school will come out to point at me and laugh at me and make fun of me if I wear a skirt in public. (Reading this makes me think: boy, we were sure bored in school, if we had time and energy for this kind of stupid stuff.)

-- AMM

[Bravehearts.us]

AMM,

But it's really hard to stop thinking in the Old Ways -- that everybody in school will come out to point at me and laugh at me and make fun of me if I wear a skirt in public.

You might get a few but generally, unless you are really pushing the boundaries, that just doesn’t happen especially if you are dressing as a male. In 23 years of skirting publicly I’ve had three negative comments and that’s all they were. Until you get out there to dispel all those natural imaginings we all get at first your fears will continue and may ever get so bad you will never get out and do it.
Lar

[Since1982]

Take a look at these photos and tell me if you see anyone either pointing, laughing or in any negative way even noticing me and my skirt at all!

[AMM]

.. Until you get out there to dispel all those natural imaginings we all get at first your fears will continue and may ever get so bad you will never get out and do it.

Lar

Take a look at these photos and tell me if you see anyone either pointing, laughing or in any negative way even noticing me and my skirt at all!

Yeah, I know, I'm just whining.

I'm going off to "Dance camp" for a week of Contra- and English dancing, and planning to wear skirts for most or all of the time, but I'm getting cold feet (in 90+ degree weather, that's quite a trick ) And that's even though I've been told other guys do it.

Just call me "chicken-man"...

-- AMM

P.S.: But I did get the nerve up to get out of my car at a rest stop with my skirt on while driving back from Vermont last weekend. And there were several bunches of macho-looking guys standing around. I was just checking whether the bicycles were tied down properly, and it took me two rest stops to get up the nerve, but, hey, it's better than nothing. Buck, buck, buck, buck...

[Departed Member]

Just calling in at a petrol station, filling up & away again was how I first 'braved' (if that's the right word!) the 'public' thing, whilst on a longish car journey. It's much easier 'away from home', nobody's bothered, some curious stares perhaps, but is that surprising? I've yet to have anyone tell me, "You're wearing a SKIRT!" (as some folk here have), but there's at least two good quick retorts, "Oh my gawd, so I am!" or, "Your point is.......?" which may come in handy!

[Bravehearts.us]

Yeah, I know, I'm just whining.

Well, everyone needs to do that from time to time.

P.S.: But I did get the nerve up to get out of my car at a rest stop with my skirt on while driving back from Vermont last weekend..... and it took me two rest stops to get up the nerve.

That’s a good way to start. Do it away from home and do it in situations that have an easy escape and won’t last any longer then you want them to. When you have some control over the situation it helps. Our biggest fear isn’t that someone will laugh or point at us. Our biggest fear is that we are afraid we will not be able to handle the situation.
When I started skirting, it was the second day and I decided I was going to go shopping at Target in my new found (kilt look –a-like) $5 skirt. What a joke! I sat out in the car for at least an hour trying to get up the nerve to go into the store. Eventually I gave up and went home with my tail between my legs. I was upset over the fact that I was so afraid that it stopped me from doing what I wanted to do. It felt like I had been beaten into submission by society. Talk about being let down in oneself and so depressed. But I was also very mad!
It was the next day that I went back and it was my anger that enabled me to get out of the car and get my butt into the store. It became a non-event. Nothing happened.
Lar

[binx]

Went to a distant mall, then grocery stores a number of times. Really helps you to realize that most people really don't care what we're wearing, as long as it's not really out there. Again, denim skirts are great for closer to home as you grow your confidence.

binx

[Since1982]

Try driving like you're drunk without actually BEING drunk, not so wild as to get a ticket but enough to get stopped by the police to give you a sobriety test, which of course you'll pass easily, like walking backwards with your feet lined up in a straight line while reciting the alphabet backwards out loud. When the police car's side door opens and a man with a movie camera hops out you'll no longer have to worry about being seen wearing a skirt as you'll become a national celebrity and be asked for autographs everywhere you go. Ain't life grand?

For practice, try reciting the alphabet backwards now in front of your computer....it's not easy, even for completely sober people, 'specially the ZYXW part. Another one I love to watch the police administer is having someone stand with their feet together so tight as to be touching and then close their eyes and tilt their heads back without falling over...I can't even do that one and I haven't had a drink since I was 27...

Then again, you can just ignore all this and keep jumping in and out of the car at rest stops.

(This entire segment was added for humor purposes only)

[skirttron]

It's certainly true that no-one but a maniac will yell stuff at you when alone. In my experience, only males ever do it - usually as an apparent joke - to prove they are straight to the other people they are with - male or female. Builders, of course, have in the past yelled stuff at passing females for the same reason.

[Dennis A Lederl]

LOL!

[DanR]

Take a vacation to a mens skirt-friendly area like Madison, Wisconsin or Seattle, Washington. It'll build up your confidence.

[Matt]

I'm having the same trouble. I've been wearing my Blackwatch kilt to an English pub here in Augusta, which only gets a few fertive glances from people who haven't seen it before. I'm just the really quiet guy in a kilt to most of them. As far as a skirt, I have a denim Levi-Strauss Signature one that looks like a pair of shorts from a distance - it's straight cut. Unfortunately, I fell from a ladder while taping my house for painting and tore part of it just off of a seam. I bought another demin skirt at Walmart, but am too nervous to wear it out - definitely flairs out more than the other one. I love driving in skirts - no restrictive fabric. Gonna have to go on a road trip that's longer than one tank and see how things go. Still too afraid to walk into the station and get a coke. Wierd how little things scare me, while major ones don't. I patrolled the streets of Baghdad without much worry, but wear a skirt into a public place - terrifying.

[AMM]

.... Wierd how little things scare me, while major ones don't. I patrolled the streets of Baghdad without much worry, but wear a skirt into a public place - terrifying.

BEGIN{armchair psychoanalysis}

It doesn't seem wierd to me.

On the one hand, when you walk the streets of Bagdad, you're not alone: you've got your buddies, the U.S. military, the U.S. government, and the U.S. population (well, some of it) walking with you, in spirit at least. One reason units train together and fight together is that they mutually reinforce a sense of safety: if he's not turning and running away, it must not be as dangerous as I thought. (The other reason is that men are more afraid of embarrassing themselves in front of their buddies than of getting killed, so a unit will go into situations that you could never get an individual soldier to go into. The same principle as the MSM.)

On the other hand, when we -- as males -- walk out in public with a skirt on, we're risking our place in society. And we are a species where individuals survive by being part of a society, depending on one another's knowledge and cooperation to feed, clothe, and protect ourselves.

Robinson Crusoe may have survived for a while on his own, but he had the benefit of a shipload of supplies, and it was touch and go. Or consider the penalty of shunning in Amish society. Or ostracism in ancient Greece or Rome or being declared outlaw in previous centuries.

Realisticly, it's unlikely that you'd be ostracized (literally, as in Greece, or in the more limited, metaphorical sense we use now) for wearing a skirt. But that's our rational mind talking, and the rest of our mind has got more sense than to rely on human "rational thinking" for survival.

We look around us, and see what happens to people who rob banks or kill people, yet people do those things all the time. How much more awful must the consequences be for wearing a skirt, if all these men who don't shrink from a life sentence in prison are too frightened to consider wearing a skirt!

END{armchair psychoanalysis}

By the way, which Augusta are you talking about? Georgia? Maine? Someplace not in the USA?

-- AMM