Right now, I am in the thick of a fierce contest. The big winner is the one judged to be the biggest loser.
This is not about losing weight, mind you. I am competing in an International Dork-off, with entries from around the world. And I fully expect to win.
I suppose I should explain what a Dork-off is. It sounds rather rude, but it isn’t, really.
Every one of us has, in some album or in the back of some drawer or possibly even up on our wall, a photo of ourselves where we look like a complete and utter dork. Some of us have ... well, more than one.
I’m not talking about a photo where your eyes were closed when the picture was snapped or someone held up two fingers to form rabbit ears behind your head. I am talking about a photograph that, when you look at it, you truly feel sorry for the poor dork who just didn’t know, couldn’t possibly have known that 10 or 20 or 30 years down the line, this picture would be drop dead hilarious.
Maybe yours was from your Grade 3 class picture, wearing the cat’s eye glasses and the plaid jumper, your bangs cut ruler straight across except for the tiny notch when your sister jostled your mom’s scissors hand. Or maybe it was from when you and your dad were shooting hoops in the driveway and mom took a picture of you in short shorts with knee-length tube socks.
The pictures come from every possible period of life and any conceivable setting. The common thread that connects them is that the subject of the picture looks like a complete Dork. And, more importantly, has absolutely no idea he or she is so afflicted, and won’t for at least a decade.
The world of fashion has been wonderfully co-operative down through the years when it comes to making otherwise normal folks look like dorks. Every decade had its dorky fashion trends, from ultra-wide bell bottoms in the 60s (guilty), to 1970s leisure suits (guilty), to the 1980s and "Dear Lord, young lady, that is some gigantic hair on your melon!" (not guilty, but only on a technicality).
The pictures in this annual competition constitute an impressive array of dorkitude. A lesser man would feel some trepidation about throwing his hat into the ring. But a lesser man would not have quite so many hats.
I will win this competition based on the sheer volume of my entries. I have at least six pictures in the mix, each one more dorky than the one before.
Among my favourites: a picture of me standing with my future wife, at some sort of dance. I am wearing a blue plaid shirt with too-long sleeves, white trousers, and a blue polyester knit tie with a squared off end so it looks like it was tucked into my pants, which by the way are riding up somewhere just south of my armpits. The blank expression on my face fairly screams, "She must hate me. Why else would she let me dress like this?"
Another favourite is one of me back in the day when I had hair. My hair was naturally curly, and I kept it fairly long, so it sort of took on a poodle effect. In this particular picture, I have a bushy Fu Manchu moustache and have struck a muscular pose that might be a teensy bit threatening if it weren’t so completely laughable.
People say that with the advent of digital cameras, there will be fewer and fewer of these really embarrassing photos, but I’m not so sure. Because the thing is, I clearly remember when those pictures were taken. And I did not think I looked silly or comical in the least. In fact, at the time I thought I looked pretty darn cool.
Twenty years from now, we will look at pictures of ourselves taken yesterday, and we will shriek and say "How did you let me go out dressed in that? Dear Lord, look at my hair! The shoes! The shoes are hilarious! Did we really wear those?"
Because clothing goes out of style. Hair styles are transient. Fads come and fads go.
But dorkiness? That, my friends, is forever.
Nils Ling is a columnist and published author. He can be contacted at nils.ling@gmail.com