I was sitting outside last night, waiting for a friend, getting bitten to high heaven because apparently my skin is delicious to the mosquitoes in New York. Anyway, as I sat there waiting, starving, and a little impatient, I was looking at everyone around me feeling self-consciously out of place. I was at a college campus, and even though it was a graduate campus, I still felt like I didn’t belong there. I wasn’t giggling or waving to anyone coming out of the building and I wasn’t dressed in old jeans and flip-flops.

And then, I realized WHY I felt out of place. It wasn’t my age, because I’m far from old, but rather the level of style that was on display that made me feel like an outsider.

I started looking at the clothes these students were wearing and I found myself having an “Aha! Moment.”

You know when one of your friends is going on and on about someone new they just met and how unbelievably cute he/she is and how they can’t wait for you to meet her/him and see for yourself? And then you see for yourself, and you’re at a loss for words?

I used to wonder about this. Like, I seriously, tried to figure out if it was me and that I wasn’t seeing something that my friend did or maybe my tastes were off base; and then it dawned on me: if everyone was attracted to the same thing there’d be no diversity in the world. And, there wouldn’t be enough of the same thing to go around, which would cause major issues.

The same thing goes for clothes. I like to think that every time I walk out of the house I’m looking pretty good. I’m sure there’s someone who’d disagree with that assumption for any number of reasons, but the fact is, I think I look good.

Actually, I know I look good…at least, in my opinion. And that’s the only opinion that matters, right?

I like the fact that everyone doesn’t like exactly what I like. I love to exclusively wear some things and never see them on another girl, as if I’m the only one who wears them.

Honestly, I can’t understand the way my sister dresses. So many times I have wondered what going on in her head when she buys certain things. I’ve tried to advise her on what I think she should be buying and how she should wear her clothes. The problem is, she loves the way she dresses. She listens patiently to my unsolicited “advice,” and the next time I see her there have been no changes.

It took me a while to realize that she was happy with the way she dressed. That she, in fact, was not that impressed with my style, which is still hard for me to wrap my head around.

But what I do see is that she is happy. She could care less if I thought her dress should have stayed at whatever store she found it. She wasn’t waking up every morning wondering if I was going to like what she wore that day. Her perception is her reality and that’s all that matters. In her head, I was the one who lived in the Matrix, not her.

Dresses, shorts, shirts, skirts, shoes, leave different impressions on different people. But the great thing is when it comes to what you wear every day; you’ll always have the last word.