Nicholas Rubera
November 17, 2018
Sociology - B1


	In society, there are many norms that are in place. And a huge majority of people who follow them so they don’t stick out too much and or get weird looks by others. Many of the norms have to due with appearance and they way you dress. The norm I broke was to wear clothes that didn’t match at all. That is a social norm because you are expected to wear clothes that match everyday. I wore clothes that didn’t match at all. The colors matched but the styes of the clothes didn’t. I wore some expensive clothes with some really inexpensive clothes and the outfit looked just weird and off. I wore a pair of my more expensive shoes with an expensive hoodie. But I wore some really cheap baggy sweatpants with the outfit, throwing it completely out of whack. I got my first reaction from my friend Josh who said “Who let you leave the house like that”. He was confused as to why I was mixing clothes in such a weird way. I was obviously not going to tell him I was doing it for a project so I just told him that it was a ‘lazy day’. He then gave me a weird look and said “ahh I see”. Upon entering school,a few of my other friends were a bit confused as to what I was wearing and why. They didn’t say anything but I could tell they were confused and wanted to say something but didn’t. I had gym first period that day so I got some weird looks from people in the gym class. In the locker room, a few of my friends were confused and questioned what I was doing. I again told them that it was just a ‘lazy day’. Saying that quickly dismissed them. For the most part people don’t really care what you wear as long as it isn't too far out there and looks decent. I feel like people reacted like this for a few reasons. One being the obvious, wearing high-end clothes with sweatpants. But the other being that it must have been weird to see me in sweatpants because I haven’t worn sweatpants to school in years because I prefer to wear jeans or some other type of pants. So doing this project wasn’t only odd because of the norm I broke but also because I did something that I never really do which felt kinda weird but the outfit was super comfy. The extra attention didn’t bother me and I didn’t really mind it. All I got was a few extra stares at my outfit for the day and a few comments from my friends. Overall I really enjoyed breaking this seeming small social norm. It took me out of my comfort zone (not literally) and had me do something that I wouldn’t have done normally. The norm I broke wasn’t too big so I didn’t gain too much attention and I didn’t get noticed by any teachers. They are all just used to teens wearing sweatpants all the time. From this project I remembered why I wore sweatpants for all of freshmen year and now I might start wearing them more often in school now.