The shirt on my back

[digitaldiscipline]

Randomly gifted with a fairly nice, black, Nike dri-fit golf shirt from Dell at work the other day, I decided to wear it this morning.

It's an XL, which, admittedly, I'm not. However, the contrast between the fit of an XL and my more habitual Ls (with a couple of Ms) has got me thinking about the concept of vanity sizing for guys.

Yes, part of my goal when I started lifting was to outgrow my Medium polo shirts, at least through the arms, shoulders, and upper back (there's nothing to be done about length; no lift I've found will actually make me any taller, dagnabbit). That's on the forseeable horizon, and not just because of my penchant for washing my laundry in warm or hot water (cotton shrinks; this dry-weave/dri-fit/wicking stuff is fucking amazingly resilient to that sort of stupidity). So, it's not surprising that I'm most comfortable in shirts with an L on the tag.

However, that doesn't stop it from fucking with my head a little, because I'm still the same not-precisely-large person in there that I feel like I've always been. People meeting me in person for the first time seem to be surprised that I'm as slightly-smaller-than-average as I really am.

(reference: http://www.halls.md/chart/height-weight.htm - use the "white boy" tables)

Height: A tad under 25th percentile (5' 7.5")
Weight: Right at 50th percentile (~180#)

I dunno about you, but "bottom quartile and absolutely fucking average" do not really combine to equal "large" by any calculus I can readily invent.

Has the average men's shirt size been shrinking, so that guys can feel bigger than they actually are while women's sizes have done the opposite? I have no fucking idea.

I just know that the only thing about me that I usually think is big is my mouth.

Comments

[baobh.livejournal.com]

Oh, what fun little charts. I'm somewhere around the 80th percentile in weight and...uh...110th'ish percentile for height? Well, I feel special.

It could be the cut of the shirt; there has been a tendency towards slimmer cuts in tees recently. My men's size L tees from 10 years ago are more block shaped than the same size tees from the last year.

Also, your weight does not necessarily have anything to do with where you carry your bulk; from the pics I've seen from D*con, you've put a whole lot on your back, chest and arms, whereas the vast majority of men carry their weight around their guts. It is similar to problems that I have with shirts: the chest is too tight and it is baggy around my waist. You just aren't shaped like an "average" guy, m'dear.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

I've noticed the more fitted tendency of shirts, too, though a 2009 Large seems smaller than a 1999 vintage one.

[ivy]

Heh. I'm somewhere just over 95% for height, so I feel you.

[inulro.livejournal.com]

(there's nothing to be done about length; no lift I've found will actually make me any taller, dagnabbit).

Nor is there any stretching that will do that. There is no justice in this world.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

My perspective is skewed by the fact that in the 1980s the fashion was to buy all t-shirts ridiculously oversized, so that I, at 5'4" and then about 100 pounds soaking wet, was in the habit of buying XLs.

These days, coming in around 130 (and I am PROUD of that, that's down 15 from the too-heavy I reached from a combination of post-35 metabolic slowdown and a solid month of eating crap when I moved house -- it went on and STAYED for a couple of years) -- I buy men's small, or babydoll tees in... it varies by brand. Medium or large, usually. I do know the variations by brand of those most commonly used as bases for band merch, and I ask at merch tables now!

If you do find a super-sekrit exercise that will make you taller, DO share.

[lil-m-moses.livejournal.com]

I think it's that men's sizes haven't been changing while the average man gets bigger. The women's sizes are definitely growing, though - I have a number of things in a size 14 from HS and early college in the late 80s and early 90s that are the same dimensions as things I bought in a size 10 or 12 a couple of years ago.

[normalcyispasse.livejournal.com]

As you well know, weight and muscle are very different things. Seriously, you know this.

That said, I'm finding these days that even some XXL shirts aren't fitting. On the one hand, hey, neato, but on the other -- jesus tits, it's harder than hell to find pants and now shirts too?!

[etcet.livejournal.com]

That's just the thing - I'm feeling like I'm bigger, now, at 90% useful mass, than I did when I was only 75% useful mass at approximately the same weight, when the physics of tissue density say the opposite should be true (my ridiculous spreadsheet backs this up - with the exception of my beltline, I'm fractionally larger than I was when I first started exercising again a few years ago).

I can't imagine what a pain in the ass shopping for clothes has to be for a dude your size, even without the "I can pick up a large motorcycle" stuff happening, physique-wise.

[ivy]

How tall are you, what do you like to wear, and about how much do you weigh? (I have an approximate idea of your proportions from photos.) My ex was 6'7", and one of my current boyfriends is 6'5" and burly, so I may be able to point you at usefulness since I've tried to find things for them and might have links to recycle.

[smaugchow.livejournal.com]

There's no logic to it. I used to work for a big & tall clothing company and I bought half a dozen XL T-shirts. They were tiny. And short. I mean damn near crop-top short, which on a beer gut like mine is damn near a public indecency charge. You'd think a company specifically geared toward fat guys would maybe cut their shit a little big so as not to make their customers think "Holy shit! I'm two sizes bigger than I thought I was!" . No logic to it man - sizes vary stupidly and randomly.

[ivy]

I agree that there's at least some of that in sizing for guys. Men don't want to buy things that say they're small, apparently. (And women don't want to buy things that say they're large. I'm comfortable with it but I'm weird. But I *am* tall for a girl.)