mi vestido

This first thing I ever wrote about Alejandro was about the way he dressed.

He wore skater-style sneakers, baggy jeans, and a black t shirt with some sort of tattoo-related design on the front. He usually wore a leather jacket with a hooded sweatshirt poking out the collar. He had a shaved head and dark stubbly facial hair. I, on the other hand generally looked rather bookish in collared shirts and cardigans (July 2011)

Seven months later, I described his style again

Alé often wears an Ed Hardy shirt with a tiger on it that he told me he bought at the El Alto market one Sunday. He wears baggy light colored jeans and black Adidas shoes that often have the laces untied. His dark brown leather jacket has a sweatshirt hood poking out the collar. He shaves his head to the second lowest setting once a week. He has small black flesh plug earrings, and his right hand has a tattoo in black and red of a rotary tattoo machine that says “calibración.” (February 2012)

It’s now been one year and 7 months that we’ve known each other. I’ve met his family. I’ve seen him quit 2 jobs and survive another attempt at school (in Art & Design this time). I’ve been apartment hunting with him (for both him and myself). I’ve cooked with him a few times and given up and eaten Mr. Pizza or street hamburgers far more times. I’ve fallen asleep watching movies at 8pm and stayed all night drunkenly engaging in what could be considered Marxian arguments with him. We’ve dealt with Bolivian bureaucracy together. And in general I’m rarely surprised by him.

But on the night of January 12, as we unloaded tattoo equipment from his car he startled me.

Me gusta tu vestido. Es muy vintage!

the dress in question

Granted, Alé’s style has changed as I’ve known him. On New Year’s eve he lost the sweatshirt that always went under the leather coat. He wears a grey and black striped hoodie almost every day, now. His jeans are darker and slimmer, and he’s switched from DC sneakers to Adidas. He’s grown out his hair, and its parted slightly to the side. He’s let his beard grow out, and his mustache is verging on handlebar. I suppose you could say he’s got more of a vintage look going on too lately.

But this still surprised me. I always thought of our styles as polar opposites.

But then I remembered other instances. He once told his friend Ro that I had to be an expert on Johnny Cash because I had horn rimmed glasses and a red plaid shirt. He admired my t shirt with a Warhol print of James Dean. And now he always tries to steal my imitation Ray Ban sunglasses (25 Bolivianos at Plaza San Francisco).

Our musical taste seems to be growing more similar as well. Or maybe its always been that way, I just let my assumptions get in the way. Maybe its only a surprise because I thought I had him pegged so clearly. But as I get to know him he becomes more than the stereotypes. And I suppose everyone does. I think back to what I wrote about my grad school cohort the first day we were introduced. How we’ve grown together, seen each other through divorces and deaths. They are not who I expected, but I wouldn’t ask for anyone better  with whom to decide that Friction is not worth reading or that doxa is a pointless concept. Maybe the truth is we all have more in common than it appears on the surface. And maybe that’s part of the point of anthropology.