The other night, while having dinner with Denise and Nathalie, I met one of Denise’s friends for the first time. After talking to him for a bit, it was clear that he was funny, easy-going and a big fan of the restaurant’s salads. The thing that struck me the most about him was that–get this–he pretty much does whatever he wants.

If he doesn’t feel like going to someone’s wedding, he doesn’t. If his girlfriend is hanging out with her girlfriends and he thinks it might be boring, he won’t go. If he wants to skip someone’s birthday because he’d rather catch a movie, he does. So simple! So easy! So blissfully wonderful sounding!

I, on the other hand, operate under a completely different set of rules. If I don’t want to do something or go somewhere, I’ll run it by maybe 5 different people to make sure I’m not acting out of line. This is a conversation I have about once a week with these 5 different people:

Me: So then after I ran into her, I said, “Yeah, totally, we should definitely hang out sometime.” And then she said, “Yeah, that sounds good! Just let me know.”

Person I’m talking to: …

Me: So do you think that means I need to invite her out Saturday night? ‘Cause now I’m thinking I might not even go. Maybe I’ll just stay home, I’ve been meaning to just catch up on my Us Weekly and all that, you know? And it’s not like we set a firm date right? I think it was just one of those, we should hang out sometime moments where it’s ok if you never do. Or do you think she’s waiting for me to make some plans?

Person I’m talking to: …

Me: No, you’re right. I know. I shouldn’t invite her to Saturday’s thing. Wednesday’s thing would be much better. Then I can just stay home Saturday and not feel bad about not going.

So you see, when I met this person who actually lives out this idea of doing whatever you want, whenever you want, it inspired me. Why couldn’t I be like that? In fact, there was no reason (that I could think of) that I couldn’t, so I would. I would start doing it immediately.

At the end of dinner that night, it was agreed upon that we would all meet up the next night, Friday, to go out for so and so’s birthday. I was on a food-induced high and couldn’t think of a better idea. Well, Friday night came and 8:30 rolled around and sitting at home in my pajamas all of a sudden felt like the start of one of the best nights of my life. The last thing I wanted to do was to get dressed, drive out in the rain, find parking and then commence bar activities. I texted Denise that I didn’t think I’d be going, to which she texted back “Aww… you should go.”

For the next hour and a half, I tried to enjoy shamelessly lounging around in my pajamas on a Friday night, but the happy thoughts of being a bum slowly turned into thoughts of how much Denise was going to hate me for flaking and wondering what the elipsis after “Aww” meant in her text message. I worried, Was I going to be that girl who says she will go, but NEVER goes?? After an hour and a half of this, and after Nathalie texted me with “Where are you? I’m at the bar,” I decided that maybe I could start living by my new mantra of Do Whatever You Want at a later time, so off to the bar I went.

I wore a t-shirt, some jeans and some sneakers. I have come to accept the reality that I don’t like wearing jeans or sneakers, but it was cold that night, so out of necessity I did. I’d like to mention here that I come from a long line of people who also prefer not to wear pants. My mom, my dad, my grandma, my grandma’s grandma, her mom and dad and their moms and dads and all their brothers and sisters all spent their days wearing sarongs, so it’s no wonder then that I don’t like having to wear pants when I’m supposed to be out relaxing and having a good time. The constricting waistlines, the way the bottom of pants get wet in the rain–pants have a way of feeling so inconvenient. Why can’t skirts be warmer? Or why can’t sweat pants be socially acceptable going-out attire? Also, I have just recently rehabilitated my feet back into shoe society, but they still don’t like wearing socks. A lot of the time they don’t wear any socks at all.

And as it turns out, on that Friday night, I found out that the garment aversion had spread to my torso. In the bar, on the dance floor, I lifted my arms up as part of “my move” and realized I wasn’t wearing a bra. As soon as I realized it, I remembered taking it off when I had resigned myself to staying in that night and remembered never putting it back on. I also remembered the sorta-see-throughish shirt I was wearing. I pulled my arms down and told Nathalie about my dilemma who then laughed at me for a good while before offering me her sweater.

Things on the dance floor returned to being good again, until I decided to walk off towards the bar. In doing so, I bumped into a boy (which is almost unavoidable on a 6’x6′ dance floor) who was standing in the middle of the dance floor holding a full glass. Who does this??? The bumped boy proceeded to act like I had just told him a very offensive Yo’ Momma joke and continued holding this stinky-poo look on his face for what seemed like 5 minutes. No amount of apologizing could get him to stop.

I knew I was going to be annoyed for a large part of the night if I stayed and had to look at the boy whose Momma’s So Ugly Even Rice Krispies Won’t Talk To Her. So right then and there, I decided to take a page from the book of Do Whatever You Want, and I decided to leave. I was feeling about ready to leave before the whole incident, but deciding to leave for sure to limit my annoyance felt good. There I was, deciding to do whatever I felt like doing right at that moment and doing it. I could get used to that.

However, I suppose that if I were to really embrace the new line of Do Whatever You Want thinking, it could be really dangerous. At this rate of garment aversion, there could be a really high likelihood that I might end up in a nudist colony by the tender age of 29.