MIAD? Me?

[Rhonda Jean]

Well, it was probably less that a week ago I was deriding the whole MIAD thing. Not the first time. It was also about a week ago I was talking about how I loved my long sweater and leggings. I think I even said that when I was younger I would have worn it for a dress. Over the weekend GF and I were at a restaurant we go to frequently where she knows the manager who often stops by to talk to us. I was still wearing nail polish but was not carrying a purse. She's seen me with nail polish before. I was wearing my long sweater. She says, "I like the dress!" I said, no, it's just a long sweater. She says, "Oh, Okay, I still like it!" and we go on to other subjects. I do feel my face getting red, though. GF and I didn't say anything else about it.

It did make me start wondering if it is a dress. It's a woman's sweater. More of a cowl neck than a turtleneck. It's long enough that I sit on it. So, this afternoon we're heading out to run some errands and I put on my sweater again, but this time I ask her if she thinks it's really a dress, and she said it definitely is. I ask her why she didn't tell me, she says she thought I knew. I really didn't know. I bought it at a thrift store and it was hanging with the women's sweaters and I just assumed it was a long sweater, and I thought it looked great with leggings. This time when I put it on it seemed obvious that it was a dress. Amazing how my perception shifted on it. I did not wear it. I may not ever wear it again, at least not in male mode. All that because now in my mind it's a dress instead of a sweater. It is silly! The only thing that changed was the name of it and now I won't wear it. Also, I feel kind of stupid. You'd think I'd know better. In my defense, though, I have other tops that are just as long, and they're not dresses (Are they? Now I'm wondering!). I thought about it when I bought it, and it seemed too short for a dress. I guess, too, since I always wore it with leggings it didn't seem so much like a dress.

Anyway, kind of funny. The power of a name! Call it a sweater and I love it. Call it a dress and I won't wear it (in male mode).

[Crissy 107]

Sounds like a sweater dress. Too bad the idea of it being a dress ruined it for you, at least in male mode.

[Bobbi46]

I have something similar and absolutely love it but it is what it is and what one person likes another might not, its really a personal thing I do prefer dresses but skirts and tops are my big preference

[Annajose]

It would be the opposite for me, knowing it is a dress will make me want to wear it mode, but that is me, I always wear female clothing, even in male mode!

[Davina2833]

If my wife would let me wear it, yes for sure.

[Rhonda Jean]

It's just funny how what you call something makes such a difference. I get, too, that calling it a dress would make it MORE appealing in certain situations. This time of year I wear leggings literally 90% of the time when I'm not in the office, and typically I work from home, so even then. I look for long/tunic tops to wear with them and all of those might be women's. I think I have a couple of men's sweatshirts that are long enough, but when I wear them I don't give much thought to whether it's a men's or women's top. I even have other sweaters, but this one is the longest. I love wearing big, soft, loose tops with leggings. This was my favorite and the other favorite was a giant hoodie (actual brand Giant Hoodie). Another thing about realizing it's a dress it realizing that I've worn it all kinds of places around all kinds of people (maybe family, I'm not sure) and this is at least the 2nd year I've had it. Nobody has said anything about it being a dress before.

Mostly this was just poking a little fun at myself. Like I said, I've derided the MIAD thing, and here I've been doing it myself! Another thing, wearing it over leggings changes it dramatically to me. If I'd worn it or even some of my other tops bare legged or with tights it would have clearly been a dress. I've worn this and other long tops over skinny jeans. There again, that transformed it from dress to sweater. I guess it's really the bare legs that make the difference between a sweater I'd wear as a guy and a dress I'd only wear as a woman. Probably a meaningless difference to anybody else.

Anyway, Phili and I have even more in common than I thought! Kinda funny.

[DianeT]

What... Dogs? You mean, all my friends with lots of hair, pointy ears, whipping tail and tongue sticking out, panting, they are not people but DOGS? Oh, Lord.
(Loosely adapted from a famous French humorist).

[Geena75]

I used to have a sweater that I could pull down enough to wear as a much-to-short sweater dress for fun. In male mode I just wore it to my belt line. About a year ago I bought a sweater dress and it is just a little too short to wear as a dress -- at least for getting out. I wear leggings with it. I think my female things are too feminine to wear in male mode, such is life.

[Rhonda Jean]

Diane, Ha! I know. Sounds suspicious, doesn't it? I mean, what kind of idiot wouldn't know that was a dress? Maybe I subconsciously chose it because it was a dress? Ummm, I'm not quite that deep.

I will say I am softening to the idea of wearing a dress over leggings. A practical thing, really (sure it is!). The selection of tops as long as I like to wear them (with leggings) is not great. Poor, actually. I'm 5'9", so a bit on the tall side for a woman, and that makes it more difficult. So, (again, totally as a practical matter) maybe what I should be shopping for is short dresses. I have no idea how long it's been since I shopped for short dresses. I am warming up to the idea. Like warming up to the point that I'm going to see what I can find today!

To me, there is a HUGE difference between wearing a short dress over leggings and wearing one over bare legs. Mind you, over here leggings are way different from tights or hose. I've worn my share of short dresses and dresses in general, and for that matter never wore tights under a dress in female mode. Maybe I'm slicing all this pretty thinly and it's all a silly justification and all I'm doing is trying to find any excuse to wear a dress. Maybe, but at this point in my life there's nothing stopping me from wearing a dress any time I want. Wearing one as a guy, yes, that's a different matter.

Delving into some self-analysis, getting back into a full female personna/appearance has been slow going. I just don't know if I'm going to get there. Fact is, I just don't look nearly as good as I used to. There is a whole lot less pressure to look a particular way if I just add feminine items to my male wardrobe. If there's a subconscious thing going on, that's probably it. Maybe that's just all I can pull off these days. It's pretty obvious that's what I've been doing, when I step back and think about it. The nails, the purse, the mules, leggings, the long tops now (maybe) leading to dresses-as-tops, brows threaded and tinted. I've worn concealer and/or BB cream every day for 20ish years. I infrequently wore/wear mascara in male mode. So, when you get right down to it, what's left? A wig, bra, jewelry.

As I'm writing this I'm realizing I'm sounding like the silliness you see about "men's" makeup, skirts, earrings, nail polish... whatever. So ridiculous that if you market it with "men's" in front of it and make it uglier than "women's" it somehow makes it different. I'm SO not going down that road! A weakness of mine has always been, though, that I thought I could do something (typically a hairstyle) that was an 11 on a scale to 10 feminine, and if I was wearing it as a guy that it didn't count as "women's". I have a history of doing that for my whole life, This might just be the 60-something year old version of that.

Please, Lord, don't let me get to the point of, "Are you wearing makeup?" "No! It's men's face paint!" Don't anybody get the wrong idea. I know what I am. GF knows what I am. I've had the "I've wanted to be a woman my whole life" discussion. This is more or less about the growing pains of getting back into a full fem presentation. Not as easy as it used to be.

[DianeT]

At least you were bold enough to go the full metaphor before passing your prime. I was not. My first wig and wardrobe at 52, well that was a little too late to see what girl I could have looked like at the time I could still be called a girl. If I had been more honest with my wife, I could have done better. But the past is the past and these things won't come back, so now I'm aiming at looking like a lady of 55 and adjusting my outfits along that line. Funny that you mention leggings (the thick, pants-like version) over a sweater dress, because that, combined with a striped business jacket, is exactly what I wore in my last session a few days back, and it was pretty neat. I also tried a long skirt my wife gave me in a previous one, and really loved it. More age-appropriate, and still very feminine, in a way I had not experienced before (not sexy, to be explicit), and that touched me. And young women are wearing them too, so, you don't feel like an old timer in them either.
So you never wore a dress with tights? God forbids! Try it! As for short dresses at 60, well, not saying you can't, but if I had to go out, wearing leggings underneath would be my choice for passing (not passing as a woman, simply passing).
Back to why I was talking chiffons: your female persona probably needs to evolve. I know mine is, I'm past my prime as a pretty face and need to find my new look and presentation, one that doesn't require an inch of foundation to be credible. It'll probably take time to find it, and if I were you, I'd use the help of a GG, your girlfriend maybe? My wife doesn't participate, but she was kind enough to let me have some of her former clothes, and that alone was a huge help as I could suddenly try a series of actual female looks. Since I did, it also opened another alley worth considering, the MIAD thing. Like wearing this nice long skirt and a female shirt, and nothing else, no forms, no wig, no face paint. Because that would be much more acceptable for my wife than what I do now.

Maybe one day you'll find me lounging with jeans, and a sweater a tiny bit too long

Ah, and for the record, I totally agree about the long sweater being just a sweater when worn with pants or thick leggings, and becoming a dress with bare or hosed legs.
And coming to think of it, if you like oddities, I have one to tell too on my end: I love my wife in tights. I mean, I could really spend my life looking at her in them. But she also wears thin leggings that are merely tights without the feet. Believe it or not, it totally kills the thing for me (and it's not just because she puts socks with them. There, I outed her ). I don't say she doesn't look good in them (she does!). But it simply doesn't look sexy to me anymore. Just nice to look at. Sometimes I'd like to take a walk in my own head and look at how stuff is assembled there.

Well, even if it takes time, it looks like your desire to dress again is gradually coming back. More a pink whiff than fog at the moment, but it's there.

[Rhonda Jean]

I have never worn a dress with tights. Panyhose, yes. Also, way back when I wore navy blue pantyhose (too thin to be called tights) with very short shorts in male mode. I've done about everything "in male mode" when you get right down to it. Seriously, though, never the MIAD thing until the sweater incident. Evolving to 60+, yes. Still a bit shocking to wear something like the sweater/leggings thing and look in the mirror and see this older face with short hair that seems entirely incongruent. My tactic for that is to avoid mirrors. As far as sexy goes, yes, that ship has sailed. To be forthcoming about it, the oversize tops hide my belly (God, I can't believe I just typed that out loud!), and my skinny legs... well, if you only looked at my legs I could still be 25 and SIZZLING!

It is an arduous climb back to full fem. When I reach the summit, what will I really have? Full metaphor... not sure I ever though of it that way, but, yes I did! And if you look at only that and not the tragic asides from it, well, let's just say it was AWESOME! Experiences that very few people have. Lucky me! I'm getting better at looking at my time in that way, without the usual addendum.

I do have a history of pretending that I can influence the way people see me or the things they see just by thinking it. When I was wearing a bra every day I told myself nobody would notice, and since nobody said anything I thought they didn't. Ha! Wrong! I thought if I rolled my hair every day that people would think I just rolled out of bed that way. Double Ha! Long list. You get the point. Kind of like "It's a long sweater." My mirrors had FaceApp 40 years before there was FaceApp.

[DianeT]

Dammit Jean, I got warped in translation again. Tights, not pantyhose. That makes more sense now