richie c.

Stephen Colbert: “It gets better.”

Something similar happened to me, but only when I was a graduate student. Before that, I had endured bullying the hard way: returning insults, ignoring, walking away, and crying.

I was at a bar with friends one night. They were sitting down while I was standing near the bar looking at a hand-written chalkboard menu of specials. I’m not a beer connoisseur by any means, so it takes me a few minutes to decide what I want. I think I was squinting at the menu because I wasn’t wearing my glasses.

“Hey, fag,” someone said. “You wanna suck on this?”

A stranger standing next to me with a moronic expression on his face had lifted his T-shirt and exposed his right nipple to me. His douche bag sidekick was standing next to him with a similar grin on his face.

I was shocked and then embarrassed. I’m the kid whose phobia of middle school lunchrooms stuck with him to the bars. This kind of bullshit is exactly why I don’t like going out, and I didn’t know if I should run away or punch him in the face.

But then some kind of calm took over me. I said nothing and looked at him in the eye. Then I leaned in his direction, stuck my tongue out, and flicked my tongue up and down in front of him.

“Ew!” he said. “Gross!”

And he and his sidekick ran away to hide in some corner of the bar.

By somehow having the confidence to appear to be in agreement, I exposed him as the jackass that he was.

Stepping out of the moment, no longer taking anything as personal, and taking life less seriously by laughing at it are all similar lessons, and I only wish I had learned them earlier.

It appears NBC has its first contender to Mad Men coming this fall: The Playboy Club. Watch the trailer.

As much as I love women embracing their beauty and femininity, Nick Dalton is no Don Draper. And the writing doesn’t seem as sharp. But that’s fine, although it’s a little odd Alan Taylor is directing when he worked on Mad Men, too.

In the same vein, I did just buy a new suit and shirt (and tie clip!) from Indochino with a Groupon. It’s about time I had at least one custom suit. My last suit was off the rack and, um, from 1999.

For prom.

Actually, it has been a decent suit for many years on many job interviews, but I think it’s time for something better fitted and more stylish.

I also consulted my Details Men’s Style Manual in discovering what makes a truly great suit. That’s right: Guys aren’t innately born with this knowledge, and my dad wasn’t in my life much, so I have to figure this stuff out on my own.

Some of the finer points I learned:

• A good suit will sit right on the shoulders and flatter your frame
• The lapel will sit flat on the chest with no bend at all
• The sleeve buttons aren’t for show and will actually unbutton; unbuttoning the first could be a sign of showing off
• The lines in the subtle patterns of a suit will match up across the seams
• The trim line should follow the lines of your body, which means the jacket should be tighter in the waist, assuming you’re in shape; boxy jackets are bad
• The sleeve length should allow cuff to show
• Single-breasted is easier to pull off; double-breasted harder and only for fit men and should always be unbuttoned
• Two front buttons is classic; button the top one only
• Interesting that two jacket vents seem to be favored by the British, but a shirt with French cuffs, has, well, French influences
• Rich midnight blue seems to be the most versatile (but I prefer black)
• Wear a well-fitting button-down shirt, belt, and well-fitting pants when getting measured; the measurements are taken from the existing seams and make life easier
• Alter the suit even if it’s off the rack
• One great suit is better than two mediocre suits, which means don’t go cheap; this is your time to look good

I’m going to wear the suit with the skinny, black tie my favorite girl once gave to me for Christmas, and I’m going to see if my mom can’t give me a handkerchief for a corner square, just for something sentimental to soften the look.

The style manual has chapters on shirts, pants, blazers, ties, and more. It’s not like I replaced my entire wardrobe when I bought the book, but whenever I buy new clothing, I do flip through it.

I used to be jealous of the amount of information available for women’s fashion. Now I’m very happy with my style manual and can’t imagine living in the schizophrenic (and sometimes contradictory?) world of women’s fashion.