I started wearing tank tops, seven years ago, during my second summer in New York City. They keep me cool or at least cooler than any other kind of t-shirt. I am no longer living in New York City, but I am still wearing tank tops or as my brother likes to say, wife beaters. The funny thing is that it is wife who suggested I start wearing them.
Actually I would say that my conversion to the tank top, an item of apparel that I am now wholly committed to, represents a fundamental change. I was always the sort of person who possessed such a strong preconception of what I would and would not wear. And since I have always been overweight I long had the very common tendency among the fat to try to cover up my body as though a loose shirt would somehow make me look thinner. In addition, I am a snob and always associated tank tops with working class slobs, not with middle class Jewish intellectuals like myself. But all of this has changed. Perhaps the fact that my tank tops are branded by Ralph Lauren or Banana Republic, somehow mitigates the snob issue, but still a white tank top is a white tank top even if it is ribbed and freshly laundered. Of course only about half of my tank tops are white. The rest are gray, brown, black, blue, and dark green.
I wear tank tops now because I am no longer attempting to hide my body. It is whatever it is and I endeavor to make it better. Secondly and this is actually fundamental, it was my wife who suggested I wear them. She has always accepted me for who I am and in fact has made me feel good about my body in a way that no one else ever did. Sometimes liberation from ones prejudices comes from within, but sometimes it really takes another person to make you recognize life’s alternatives.
