Do you guys prefer to be an “innie” or an “outie”? 

I’m talking about shirttails, not belly buttons. Somebody else made that belly-button decision for you, but what you do with your shirttail is completely up to you. 

Or is it? 

Sometime in relatively recent fashion history, men have started wearing untucked dress shirts in situations where tucking had been the norm. A lot of men. There’s even a clothing brand, UNTUCKit, that specializes in shirts that made specifically to not be tucked in.  

I am not sure what can be done to a shirttail to improve its ability to not be stuffed into britches, but there’s a market for it. Should you happen to be puzzled by the concept, there is website fashion advice on how to wear an untucked shirt with a sports coat. “You, too, can pull off the look.” 

As fashion choices go, this is not a bad idea. It is no more reasonable to stuff your shirt into your pants than it would be to stuff your pants into your socks. But silly as the habit might be, people have been doing it for a long time. 

And now, many of them don’t.  

It is hard to believe that all these men made the independent decision, each on his own, to quit stuffing his shirttail into his pants. So, if each of them didn’t, who made that decision for all of them? 

This is where it gets science fiction, mind-control scary. There is something called fashion that can’t be predicted, regulated, or explained and it has this remarkable control over behavior. 

Lord knows I’ve been there: Elephant bellbottoms, leisure suits, paisley shirts with collars that reach to the elbow, Nehru jackets, embroidered jeans, tie-dyed T-shirts, cowboy hats, Roman sandals, Afro perms, desert boots, 3-piece suits with reversible vests, tube socks, Sansabelt slacks with no back pockets, turtlenecks, and Madras plaid shirts with “love loops.”  

No way I ever came up with that stuff on my own. I was a tool for whatever passed for a fashion industry for people like me and was helpless to resist, no matter how embarrassing. It’s like every picture I have from 1964 on, whenever I was wearing anything that I thought was of my own choosing, could have the same caption: “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” 

One of the few benefits of getting old is that nothing new looks like a good idea anymore. We not only become immune, we become resistant, sort of the white blood cells that fight the trendiness in society’s bloodstream. 

Sharing this negativity with each other is one of the ways we bond.  

A few days ago, in the produce section at Publix, a total stranger of about 1950 vintage was looking at some kind of weird vegetable. Neither of us knew what it was, but we agreed that we were both against that sort of thing, and, in fact, as the conversation proceeded, were opposed to almost everything else that wasn’t just like it used to be.  

This was a kindred spirit, a man who knew his mind and would not fall for trendy stuff, and we got along just fine. We noted that we’re both in the store a lot and would see each other around and even mentioned setting up golf “the next time we see each other.” 

Then he turned to leave and I saw it. A ponytail. 

And let that be a lesson to me — sometimes change isn’t so bad. For one thing, I’m going to have to find a new grocery store.