The guy in that photo? I am not him in a literal sense. But I am him. I am his brethren. I am his people. I am his compatriot.
I am a shorts in winter guy.
We are hated. Dismissed. Ridiculed. People see us, and it gives them a…short(s) fuse. I see their looks — sometimes disbelief, sometimes irritation, sometime bemusement. Even if they don’t directly ask, I know what they’re thinking: “Buddy, what are you trying to prove?”
The answer: nothing, other than that I like shorts.
Before going much further, a caveat: I do not suffer the frigid winters of the upper Midwest. I am not an East Coaster with clattering teeth in a winter squall.
I live in the relatively mild Pacific Northwest. This year has been particularly temperate, only a few days even near freezing, let alone dipping below that mark. I’m not walking out of my house into a wall of winter.
Nevertheless, my shorts still draw looks. This isn’t a statement about being tough: one look at me will reveal that I am very much not tough. I just really prefer shorts to pants.
Here are the facts:
- Like I said, I live in the Pacific Northwest. It rains. A lot. And you know what sucks? Pants that get wet. They stick to your legs, they get uncomfortable, and you are always aware of your wetness. Shorts alleviate this problem.
- Along those lines: stepping in a puddle while wearing pants. Like above, this is less of a problem in shorts. My legs dry a lot faster when uncovered than my pants do when they get wet. Wet pants = longer period of discomfort. I absorb looks and judgment much easier than my pants absorb water.
- When I get cold, it’s not through the legs. It’s through my core. So on cold days I throw on an extra layer. I don’t go to extremes and wear t-shirts in 40-degree weather. I’m not THAT guy. But bare legs don’t represent a source of frigidity for me.
- I’m a cargo shorts guy. Hell yeah I am. More storage space than regular pants. I know cargo shorts are reviled by a portion of the population. I don’t care. Give me function over form every day. And I realize cargo pants could achieve that same level of storage space, but…pants.
- Regardless of precipitation and storage, shorts are just more comfortable. So why not enjoy that as much as possible?
As it stands, since being laid off from my job in February, and with almost nowhere to go during a pandemic, it’s my belief that I have worn pants only three times since the Spring: two days when my son had golf tournaments in miserable weather, and yesterday morning on a run. Actually, check that — I’ve worn pants on Zoom job interviews in the event I had to stand up or shift around for some reason and they became visible on camera, but in those cases I didn’t leave the house and they only lasted thirty minutes or so.
So there you go. This isn’t a statement I’m trying to make. There’s no overarching point to it. It’s not a protest. I just really like shorts. When I have to put on a pair of pants, I usually find myself looking forward to getting back into shorts.
I know a lot of people don’t like the shorts-in-winter crowd, but let’s step back a bit. I’m not a Trump supporter. I’m not an anti-vaxxer. I’m not a Covid denier.
I’m just a guy who’s more comfortable in shorts. Let my people live.
