The double-take instead of the long gaze

I saw a woman at the gym today whose outfit left me wondering what she was hoping for when she donned it. The top was tight fitted, sheer and spotted with flesh colored patches and two unfortunately placed pink circular spots on the chest that caused me to look twice in order to determine if the woman had on any clothing at all.

Better still, the woman on the treadmill to my left and the man on the elliptical to my right also did double-takes as this oddly dressed woman passed by. In fact, our double-takes were so pronounced that we looked at one another and laughed after the woman had passed, realizing that we had all experienced the same thing.

Ordinarily I do not comment negatively on a person’s clothing, and I find people who do so to be quite shallow and despicable.

But you have to wonder about an outfit which seems to camouflage itself on the wearer.

Is she wearing a top?

Is that a shred of a top?

Is that top purposely shredded? 

Oh, wait, she is wearing a top. It just blends in with her naked self so much that she might as well not be wearing a top.

And yet I don’t think that she was going for the naked camouflage look.  It’s somehow too subtle and not subtle at all.

One assumes that the most a woman could expect from her clothing choice is the long gaze, the inability of others to pull their eyes away from the beauty of the garment and its wearer.

But the double-take?

It seems like that is probably the worst of all possible reactions.