A well Turned Ankle...

The first thing I noticed about the man sitting next to me was his socks.He was working away on a stack of official looking papers, his coffee cup pushed well away from him, perhaps so that he wouldn't spill and blot his copybook.

 When I raised my eyes from his sensible brogues, I saw a nice looking man with greying hair a pleasant face and a repp tie in the same colors as his socks. He had, however, chosen a purple shirt which didn't match anything. I found the whole ensemble quite charming. I happened to be looking at Blipfoto entries and was able to surreptitiously take a picture with my phone. I quite liked the patterns and colors which resulted.

I thought to myself, "Why be surreptitious? Why don't I just tell him I like his socks? In fact, why don't I tell him his socks made my day?" He was a bit surprised, but then smiled and said, "Thank you. A man needs to have a chance to express himself too sometimes." 

I assume that he meant express himself through his sartorial choices. It's a bit difficult to imagine a man in such socks being reticent. Many men do seem quite constrained about what they will and won't wear, if not what they say.  OilMan doesn't care a whit about how he looks, and if I didn't tell him what to put on, he could easily leave the house looking like he had been shopping in a dumpster.  He doesn't care what people think, yet he is a reluctant conversationalist, not disposed to speak unnecessarily.

Perhaps there are some interesting parallels between the clothing choices of men and their verbal forms of self expression. Research might be difficult since I am not in the habit of peering under men's pant cuffs, or, for that matter, striking up conversations with strange men, but more study is clearly needed.