I work with a woman who wears stretchy pants, and sadly, they aren't nearly stretchy enough.
I understand the theory behind stretchy pants - they make sense to me. You want to be completly supported, but regular pants are far too confining. You like to be out there, but you don't want the dreaded spill-over. Hence, you break out the stretchy pants. Those old friends that will expand with you throughout your daily activity.
However, there is only so stretchy stretchy pants will get. At some point, if you are not careful, you can and will obtain maximum stretchiness. After that, all bets are off, and your old friend becomes the friend to no one. I believe she has hit that point.
Before we go any further, I like her. She's a friendly person. Like many these days, she's on a budget, and stretchy pants fit well within that budget. That's one of the nice things about stretchy pants - they're affordable. Sure, you can go out to one of your more high-end stretchy pants emporiums and drop a handful of cash, but you don't have to. Affordable stretchy pants are out there.
A moment of full disclosure: I'm not in the best shape of my life. In fact, it's been many years since I was in the best shape of my life. But, I do go to the gym on a fairly regular basis, and am, at the very least, conscious of the fact that Ding Dongs, while oddly satisfying in a waxy-chocolate kind of way, are not something I need to be eating every day. I'm guessing that she is not in the best shape of her life either. That's not a judgement, just a simple observation. The difference is, I think I know when it's time to make the leap to that larger size. No one likes to make that leap to the larger size. It's a sad day. I've been there. I've made the leap - we all have. It's not fun, it's not pleasant. But sometimes, sad and unpleasant are the order of the day. The nice thing is, once you make that leap to the larger size, there's no reason you can't leap back. Perhaps the larger size will only be a temporary situation. You never know.
I wish I was the kind of person who could pull her aside and say, "I know you love the stretchy pants. You seem to have a rapport with the stretchy pants. But these particular stretchy pants aren't doing you any favors. Maybe you should look to the next level in stretchy pants." I definitely don't want to say, "Hey, you need a larger pair of pants, tubby". That would be cruel and would certainly do nothing to improve my relationships around here. Plus, that significantly improves the chances of her responding with a punch and a "Go fuck yourself, baldy". No one needs to hear that.
In the grand scheme of things, frankly, I really don't care what kind of pants she wears. It's a personal choice when you get right down to it. If she likes tight stretchy pants and feels comfortable in tight stretchy pants, more power to her. Whatever makes you happy is my motto. Me, I like my clothes to fit a little looser. Those stretchy pants seem like they would be horribly uncomfortable and somewhat constricting, especially once you reach the MSI (Maximum Stretchy Index). After awhile, I would think that the stretchy pant becomes a hinderance, and simply compartmentalizes the blood flow to the upper and lower half of the body. The result is you end up looking like a couple of ticks joined at the head by an elastic waistband. For some, that's the look they're going for. Like I said, whatever makes you happy.
Don't get me wrong - you can very easily go to the extreme opposite and wear pants that aren't stretchy at all, and are simply baggy. I'm thinking in particular of the kind of pants you see guys at the gym wearing. They're like sweat pants, only they usually have some loud, obnoxious, pseudo-California based design on them. Or worse yet, these:
It is absolutely impossible to have an intelligent conversation with anyone wearing these. Go ahead, try. I promise you, within 40 seconds, blood will be spurting from your eyes and your IQ will drop 30 points.
I'm looking at stretchy pants woman right now, and I have to say, she looks fairly content. Completely at ease with herself and her non-stretchy stretchy pants. She doesn't seem to mind that her below-waist imperfections can be seen, so why should anyone else? Really, who am I to tell her she's wrong to be living in a stretchy pant world? She seems to be perfectly happy, and now I realize I'm just being a judgemental dick. You know what? I was wrong - stretch away, madam.
Stretch like the wind.
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