Wednesday, February 15, 2006

A Social Experiment

OK, so let’s just start out with a “too much information” moment, so you get your daily allotment of Tiff-bits (like tid-bits, only with ME as the subject of interest) out of the way:

A man once told me that he liked me because my boobs were bigger than his head.

You know, up until that point in my life I hadn’t thought of actually comparing my gals with the size of the average human cranium (cue the 7-pound quote from “Jerry McGuire,” woncha?), but HE did, and apparently my ta-tas won the size prize. Goooo, me!

I don’t necessarily find that having large breasts is a FUN thing or something to be celebrated every day, so I tend to cover the Dee Sisters up beneath shirts and sweaters and such that could be kindly termed “swaddling cloth,” or better yet “drape-y.” I have never thought that my dirty pillows were particularly sexy or attractive or alluring or whatever, so would like OTHER people to ignore them as much as possible, just like I do.

Except for sometimes I like to mess with people’s minds. Sometimes I like to doll myself up in clothes that actually FIT, and do my hair, and carefully apply my makeup, and then parade around the corporate world like I’m Miss Thang and please take a look at anything you like, thanksverymuch.

Mind you, all this dolling and parading is done in the name of science. It’s all about trying to find out what people are really made of. It’s about shaking up the environment a little, because, just as no-one expects the Spanish Inquisition, neither do they expect Tiff to come to work in a nicely-fitting sweater that’s cut a leetle bit lower than usual. They don’t expect to see Tiff wearing a pair of pants that really do fit, and even if Tiff’s bum is larger than it used to be it still fits a coach seat, if you know what I mean.

So, sometimes I dress for fun and for science. To see who looks, how often they look, and where.

It’s akin to going to lunch with a bunch of people and noticing which guys in the group look at the waitress with the nice ass and which gawp at the ones with the perky love balloons. Or it’s like taking a walk with a girlfriend and comparing which construction dude could park his muddy boots by your front door. Does she go for arms or shoulder or the well-fitting jeans? It’s all in the name of the study of human behavior, really.

It’s just that I’m conducting the experiment with boobs the size of a man’s head. My boobs.

My apparently very INTERESTING boobs.

The results are sometimes amazing, and, I think, are telltale signs of a person’s trustability.

There was one guy who, while I was dressed in my very occasional scientific expedition wear, could NOT STOP GLANCING at the chestal area. Y'all, there wasn’t anything pornographic about the outfit - it would have been standard office fare for most women, but apparently had attractive powers of immense proportion for this fellow.

Too bad he wasn’t my boss. I could have used the raise all that visual feasting might have meant. However, I was glad that he wasn’t my boss, because, and here’s the social experiment part, how could I trust a man with my career who doesn’t have the self-control to avert his eyes from a normal part of human anatomy? How mature is his outlook on life, how focused would he be on big picture items when he’s so obviously not over the whole teenage thing?

My actual boss looked once, then averted his eyes for the rest of our weekly one-on-one meeting. That one lone look told me that he was guy that could be trusted and had integrity (or.....he preferred smaller mammaries!).

A male friend had the good grace to look and then look flustered, then not look again. The fact that he only looked once (maybe twice) told me he respected me as a person.

Even the ladies got in on the action! One colleague asked if I had lost weight (her social skills obviously highly honed), one told me my sweater was pretty (observational remark only, resulting in a rating partway down the interaction scale), and I think one woman just was looking for pure pleasure (but I would NOT ask her if that was indeed the case, because this was in the cafeteria and I didn’t know her and besides, who knows where THAT conversation could have gone thereafter? “Hi, I noticed you staring at my breasts. Any questions?” I have no comment on what implication this might have on my nascent ratings scale).

So, you might ask, was all the inspection and introspection and analysis worth the effort?

Did I learn anything from this except that, even though I’m not in top form and I'm older than the average piece of dirt, I can still get people to look at my bustal region?

Nah, not much. It was always all about the boobs anyhow.

4 comments:

rennratt said...

Good for you! I have also struggled with having a large chest, and finally just threw in the towel. I dressed as Abbey from NCIS on Halloween, and strode into work in a babydoll style T-shirt and ponytails. Men in suits that previously treated me as invisible became slobbering, stuttering messes. Rather than feeling mortified (as I would have when I was younger), I thought 'not bad for a gal in her 30s who had a kid!'

The worst experience ever, though, was being fitted for a nursing bra. The tiny little girl who measured me GASPED and said 'oh. I don't know that we have that size. I think that would be a special order!' I was a SIZE G - as in "GOOD GOSH! THESE ARE HUGE!"

Anonymous said...

Size. G....
There are no words. Engorgement must have sucked! No pun intended.

Suzanne said...

Boobs comparable in size to a human head will always rate a second glance when swaddled in a well-fitting sweater.

At least in my world. ;)

Suzanne

tiff said...

wordsrock - something about them sweaters, ain't there? :>