Celtic Festival 2011

I volunteered for the event for 2 days: 1 day as a runner; 1 day as a parade attendant. Each time, I wore hosiery and shorts. Read the remainder of the blog entry to read about the discussions and the women who took photos of me.

This time around, I was more focused on finding out if supportive women would marry or date guys in hosiery or shorts. Therefore, each time somebody commented on my tights, I would tell them about my goals, and ask them about their feelings about men in hosiery.

On Saturday, when I was a runner, I wore brown Doc Martens, green tights, black shorts, a black jacket vest, a blue golf shirt that was for the festival, and a white turtle neck shirt. I do not think that I looked my best when I wore that, because the colours and styles were a little bit too messy. I felt that there was some style to it, but not as much as I would prefer. Usually, I would prefer to keep the number of main colours down to 3.

1 of the ladies, that I spoke to, said that she would never never marry or date a guy who wore them. That was unfortunate. She was playful about it, though.

A couple of ladies felt that it was good for me to wear the shorts and hosiery. They saw no problems with marrying or dating guys who wore them. 1 of them took a photo of me. I will try to get it from her. To them, they believed that it is just clothing.

1 particular lady was having a drink with her friend on a patio, as I walked by. She got my attention when I walked back. She said, I love your tards.. Frankly, that sounded to me as if she was saying, retarded. I appreciated her anyways. When I asked her and her friend if she would ever marry a guy or date a guy wearing shorts and hosiery, she and her friend said, No way.. I was so shocked, because she was supportive of me doing this. I said, Well, I hope to change that. Maybe 1 day.. She said, Please don't.. I do not remember what I said, but it was along the lines of, Well, I have to. I need to try to do this.. We parted amiably.

I also spent time talking to another woman about it, who was supportive of guys wearing them, but she did not think that it was a good idea to try to start a trend. She felt that people need to think for themselves, and that trends do not let them do that. I disagree with her completely, because trends helps us as a society to move forward.

On the way home a couple of weird things happened.

On the train, a girl, sitting next to where I was standing, took a photo of me. She held her Blackberry about 1.5 feet away from my right leg. It felt so offensive, but we really need to let people do what they want. After she took the photo, of my leg, she uploaded it to Facebook, with the comment, Asian guy with short and green leggings!. I was actually excited, because that would mean more people would be exposed to what we are doing. We have to think positively, right? :^)

On the bus, a young guy, across the aisle, tapped my arm and said, Nice tights.. I thanked him and explained what I was up to. He tried to encourage me to be myself and not be afraid to be different. I asked him, Have you seen any other guys wear shorts and hosiery before?, and he said, Yeah.. I said, Was he gay?, and he said, Yep.. I swung my arm in a short punching motion, and said, Eh, shoot.. He said, I take it you're heterosexual?, and I said, Yes.. We talked a bit more about the same stuff, and we parted amiably.

That was all cool, but there is just 1 more interesting thing. I got on Facebook to see if I could find the photo that the young girl took. Unfortunately, I could not find it. Surprisingly, I did find a lot comments in the US about spotting a guy wearing tights, or leggings. It is very interesting that there are many sightings.

The next day, that first person, that I wrote about, playfully pointed out my hosiery and noticed that I was wearing a different colour hosiery. I wore grey opaques, with super faded black shorts, which made them an apparent shade of grey.

A lot of people will react with support. The rest of them have not had a chance to have somebody change their minds for them. You just need to be the person to do it for them, since you know better. :^)