Dating Like Vintage Jeans

(Written in March 2020)

"c'est toi, mon cheri" translates to "it's you, my darling"

While I was speaking to a friend the other day, she said to me “my mom has been telling me all my life that it’s good to ‘shop around’ before finding someone.” Dating is like shopping. That may sound like I’m reducing the very practice of dating to simple terms, but I’m not. Hear me out.

At 14, you hit up the mall with your friends looking for the trendiest clothes at the biggest discounts. As you get older, you realize clothes aren’t just a commodity—they’re an investment, and they should require some careful consideration before you hand over your credit card and make the investment.

It takes years to develop your style; it takes trial and error of learning what looks good on you and what doesn’t. After a while, though, it becomes second nature and the moment you try on something good, you just know.

Like the perfect pair of vintage jeans, it will fit you in all the right places. It’ll make you happy you never stopped searching, even if it required giving it a chance when you didn’t feel like it.

Even when you are tired and worn out, you might stumble upon a store you wouldn’t normally enter but still decide to go in, “just to see.” It is these chance moments when you least expect it, that you’ll find what you’re looking for.

It isn’t “magic,” rather, it’s the fact that you’re willing to keep trying on different pairs until you find the right one. Through this practice, you get to know your style better and whether you’re looking for it or not, when it’s standing right in front of you, regardless of price tag or brand, you’ll just know.

So there it is. The older you get, the less you’ll shop on a whim because you know what you need and what you don’t.

You know what’s an impulse buy and what’s an investment piece that’s made to last a lifetime. So slow down, shop carefully and at your own pace.

You’re still discovering your style and it’s going to take some time before you find those perfect fit jeans. But when you do, you’ll be able to dress them up or down and it won’t matter because they’ll be timeless.