so here's something you may not know about new york city. we do not have a high percentage of dorks here. i mean, we may have people with dork tendencies, but when they live in new york city, they lose the dork edge pretty fast.

i mean, people have jobs that typically attract a high percentage of guys in over-pressed dockers with crisp clean checked shirts all tucked in...carrying those land's end laptop carriers...wearing *those* glasses...with those hair "styles" from supercuts... it's not like they don't work here. i think they just change when they get here. something happens. their stuff gets all messed up or they dye everything black or they let the guy in the park cut their hair.

i worked with a lot of those guys when i was in IS in arizona. i met a lot of those guys at conferences. i was one. well. mostly. i was the female version. khaki pants and a nicely pressed blue shirt...

BUT NONE OF THEM WORK HERE.

i don't know when i first noticed it. but it's certainly a good amount of why i can usually tell if someone does not live here.

sometimes, there's nothing GLARINGLY OFF. it's just. well. their pants. or their shoes. or their haircut.

not that our haircuts are FANCY or our shoes are EXPENSIVE. just that they are different from the rest of the country. or worn differently.

i was on the train the other night. and i saw this guy as described above. and every last bit of him SCREAMED "i am visiting". he even looked quasi-comfortable on the subway. but something was off.

i realized right before he got off the train that his pants had creases in them - and not the kind of pants that new yorkers crease. just dockers. very tightly creased. and his jacket was like members only. and was clean. and his shirt was tucked in.

it was just strange to notice so clearly how it is that i can tell someone's not from here. it's SO subtle sometimes. and of course, sometimes you can't tell at all (a good example here might be someone from london). but sometimes, there's this teeeeeeny tiny shift in their appearance that just says "i live not in new york."

dork wear is just one of them.

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