It is a secret. Men will deny it, men may denounce you as a liar if you dare to suggest it, but the truth is self-evident, men despite the surveys, like getting dressed up. Men at work. My eyes are on them. On the street cologned men with postures of preening roosters promenade up and down the avenue dressed in beautiful suits. They are on their way to work with carefully chosen starched shirts from Brooks Brothers, and imported red silk ties the color of a hemorrhage, to better exercise their control over the world of business. Bless them; they have replaced their “blanky” with their favorite tie, their rabbit’s foot, a good omen. Sometimes they are as steely as Matt Dillon (the Sheriff on “Gunsmoke“, not the “Flamingo Kid” actor) when they tuck their cells phones in their belt holsters as if it were a pistol. Would they protect my virtue? I dream. There are as many different kind of suits as there are men. I adore the words used to identify suits, blue serge, hounds tooth, tweed, pin stripe, Glen plaid, hop sack, Blackwatch tartan, and broadcloth, they conjure a kind of accidental incantation, doing a I don’t know, a kind of masculine witchcraft. A suit is like a kiss. It has the power to transform a frog into a prince. Men at play. Some men are so pathetically cute. Grown men with graying hair at their temples still dress in their boyhood costumes. These weekend warriors wear their football jerseys and baseball caps with sneaker so grodey that no mother would ever allow on their freshly mopped kitchen floors. For a few pressing moments, they are Peter Pans. I have been to the park on the weekend; grown women do not wear their ballerina toole skirts, or nurses’ caps. Like a little boy and a puddle, adult men like taking a fall on the baseball field just to get dirty. A shinned knee is a badge of courage, if their girlfriend or wife is watching. Most amazingly, clustering together men will dress up in their costumes for the Super Bowl or Series Finals as if they were kids going to a Halloween party. They are dressed like the lost boys in Neverland. Men who have never cut a pile of wood, plowed a field, or baited a hook since they were twelve, will extol the practical virtues of their Kelly green plaid flannels by LL Bean, Carhartt jackets, Sheppler’s and Timberland boots as they get into an air-conditioned cab, or line at Starbucks. These men are characters in a Hemingway short story; their attire conveys what they aspire to be, outdoorsmen, adventurers, explorers, builders and cowboys. Their clothing compensates for the patrician suburbs or anonymous burdens of the urban landscape. Their clothing is costume, it tells you what they have the capacity for...if, only if… Men are so in love with their clothing that they will wear their underwear, socks and tee shirts until they have been shred beyond the capacity of the darner’s needle, and will be aghast that you suggest their socks are no longer fit to wear. You will risk bodily harm if you toss out their favorite “Grateful Dead” or “Clash” tee-shirt which they insists still fits them, which is doubtful since it was purchased when they were sixteen, and 50 pounds lighter. Men cling to their undergarments like their dreams, faded dreams like faded tee shirts too many times put through the washer. For too many men unarticulated dreams are better tattered than replaced by new ones. Luckily, men are made from clay and therefore malleable, they will adjust, incorporating new pieces into the fold. Most men work just as hard at not looking dressed, they will spend untold time deciding to tuck, or un-tuck a shirt, and the now forced semi-tuck just behind the belt buckle. Men will face a quandary over just how far the knot of a tie can be loosened to convey, “casual”, but not too loose to be deemed “sloppy“. Men will strategize whether to belt, or un-belt a pair of ill-fitting jeans, once the bathroom scale has made its final pronouncement. Men will interpret how many shirt buttons can be undone publicly before it get slimy, three or four, will today’s sleeves be rolled over below, or rolled over above the elbow. Men want to pull together a look that does not read as an outfit. It requires great effort to just “throw something on” The art of dressing is the art of life. 
