the naked rule

After an hour and a half of sitting in the reading room looking at facebook and repeatedly checking my email, I finally went back to my room to take a nap. Since work is clearly something that I am not doing right now, I thought I might as well fill my beloved friends in on why I do not wear sweat pants to the dining hall.

I can never just "leave my room" even if I'm just running out of my dorm for a second, or even just going to get something to eat in the dining hall. I doubt that anyone except for those who have actually shared a room with me have seen me without makeup on, and God forbid that anyone catch me with my hair in all it's unbridled glory. That being said, a lot of people wonder about my strict adherence to public upkeep, especially when they know that I am not a neat, organized, or particularly put together person in the privacy of my own room.

The answer simply put is "The Naked Rule." The Naked Rule, or "TNR," is one of the few unwritten bylaws of social interaction that I have taken to heart and internalized. The Naked Rule states that the more naked someone has seen you, the better you want to look everytime they see you after that - in clothes especially. Following TNR is a personal choice that doesn't reflect on how much I care about the opinions of the guys I've hooked up with, it's actually just because I want to always have the upper hand. Whether they've seen me naked, topless, bottomless, or clad in anything that covers less then you would feel comfortable with your mother seeing, then they fall into the category of someone who has seen too much of me. Subsequently, I would just rather look better than worse if I happen to bump into them again later on. When I moved out of my freshman dorm into an upperclassmen house, I thought I would be saved the trouble. Unfortunately I moved into a house chock full-o-boys that I managed to fit into my Freshman year weekend rotation. When I ate at in the Freshman dining hall, I always managed to at least look decent. I had a lot of guys that The Naked Rule applied to.

This year TNR has evolved a little bit. It now also applies to mental nakedness. As in the case with Nik, who has not seen me in anything less than appropriate (he didn't even see my Halloween costumes), I still feel like he has seen more of me than I would like. I actually told him that I liked him and thought he was cute, which is true, but I don't know what that means and until I do, I don't want him to see me looking less than "moderately okay" to "good."

The Naked Rule seems a little shallow, but lets be honest here, how many of you want a guy that you've hooked up with to see you looking your worse? There is a vulernablity that stems from a guy's knowledge of your body and The Naked Rule is merely a way to try and side-step it. The rule is not meant to be applied to a boyfriend, or even a close friend that you've accidently hooked up with, but really just guys that you don't want to have any more reason to judge you or picture you naked every time you see them. I know that very few would probably care if they caught me in my sweat pants, but for my own sake and sanity, I perfer it.

On that note, I am going to slip into some Seven jeans, touch up my eyeliner, and go to dinner.