Hats
May 11, 2023
In my previous snapshot, I posted a pictured of myself wearing a hat. I should mention that up until last Monday, I had never voluntarily worn a hat in my life. My girlfriend, on the other hand, has an entire hat drawer. She wears mostly beanies and baseball caps. Sometimes before going out she'll try on one hat, decide it's not right, try on another, then another, until she ends up settling with one she's not enthralled about, but is the least terrible option. The hat she loved most was lost in a taxi, and ever since then she's had a hole in her heart.
I've always thought the idea of men wearing baseball hats was something that only exists in, say, Haruki Murakami novels, and everytime I'm forced to acknowledge that that isn't the case -- for example everytime I see my brother in person -- I'm flabbergasted then immediately choose not to believe it as soon as the evidence leaves my field of vision.
In 2018 I met a journalist of sorts whose apartment was filled with boxes. She said she was scared of having sex with random guys on Tinder because of how many boxes there were in her apartment. She didn't want to have to explain to them that the boxes weren't actually hers, that she was holding them for a friend who got kicked out by his parents after they found out he was gay. One of the boxes was filled with hats.
When I first saw my girlfriend's hat drawer, I immediately remembered this man I never met and his box full of hats.
Spending half your waking hours with someone who 6 months ago was a stranger has a way of changing your perspective. Sometimes, in the course of interacting with another person at length and carefully observing their more peculiar tendencies, you find yourself becoming curious about things you used to detest. You try them out on a whim, at first telling yourself you're merely cosplaying as another sort of person. Before you know it you're a convert.
On Monday I had to say goodbye to my girlfriend. She had to go on a business trip to Beijing, and I had classes. She put on her yellow 2008 Beijing olympics hat, and I immediately felt I needed a hat too. I suddenly felt like maybe I could be a loser protagonist from a Haruki Murakami novel. Not unlike the narrator of Dance Dance Dance, I enjoying wash dishes. So I opened up the hat drawer, and after some trial and error, ended up with the red cap that says "CAP" on it. My girlfriend and I walked out together, into the afternoon shadows beneath the clouds, as two people wearing hats, belonging to the same world, rather than the hat-wearer and the hatless we were before.
Since I've started wearing baseball caps I've noticed two advantages: there are less angles people can see my face -- especially if I'm wearing a mask, and my hair isn't messed up by the wind. This goes hand in hand with the bike life I described last time. Hat hair of course is one of the infamous conditions associated with those who wear hats too much, but if anything, I feel like my hair looks better after wearing a hat for a few hours. I still kind of feel like a jerk whenever I walk around and there's a big shining red baseball cap on my head -- but maybe *I am* a jerk? Maybe this is who I was always supposed to be?
Edit August 2023: I stopped wearing hats about a week after writing this. I can't shake the feeling that I've become a dark shadow of myself every time I put a hat on. So I've given up on the hat life for now. Maybe I'll try again in another five years.