The first photo I ever saw of him, he was wearing a Vivienne Westwood tee. My friend showed it to me offhandedly—“You’d probably like him”—and she was right. There was something about the way he stood: casual but curated, like someone who thought deeply about aesthetics and just enough about politics. I was intrigued. Not by him, but by the possibility of him. By what the shirt implied.
When I first met Westwood, he was wearing a fitted black tee, Carhartt double knees, and Rick Owens Geobaskets. It was a look—intentional, but pretending not to be. The kind of outfit that says, I know what I’m doing, but I’m pretending I don’t care that you know that I know. He was dressed like someone who reads Barthes in bed but also has sex. A boy with enough fashion literacy to perform disaffection in high-end sneakers.
We made eye contact across my best friend’s kitchen, surrounded by dying houseplants and Persian-Armenians. He had the sort of face that looks bored on purpose.
Naturally, I was interested.
We talked—or something like it. He dropped a reference to Fight Club (textbook), said he didn’t really do social media (liar), and claimed he preferred “smaller scenes” (cop-out). I nodded, intrigued. Not by him, but by what he suggested. I wasn’t really meeting Westwood—I was meeting the concept of Westwood. A man designed by a niche corner of TikTok, optimized for intellectual seduction, running on vibes alone.
This keeps happening.
I go out. I meet a guy. He’s wearing the shirt. Or the rings. Or the Salomons. He knows what to wear and when to wear it. He’s curated within an inch of his life. The aesthetic is deliberate. Composed.
But then I talk to him—and it’s like pulling teeth just to find a coherent opinion. Not a take. Not a meme. An opinion. Something real.
What I’m saying is: he’s not wearing the Vivienne Westwood shirt. He’s LARPing as the kind of man who would wear that shirt.
And this isn’t just about men. It’s about a generation of people raised in the ruins of Tumblr, Instagram, and postmodern irony. Where authenticity isn’t just hard to find but rather structurally discouraged. Where the performance of thought has replaced thought itself. The guy in the shirt isn’t lying to me. He just doesn’t know there’s supposed to be a self beneath the look.
Somewhere along the way, taste became a placeholder for interiority. You don’t have to be emotionally literate, you just have to own a copy of A Little Life and say “I process through music.”
Westwood didn’t need to be interesting. He just needed to be recognizable. He was signaling a depth he hadn’t earned and I was responding to it like a trained algorithm.
Of course, I’m not innocent in all this.
I don’t just fall for the guy in the shirt—I need him to be there. I project depth onto him like it’s a survival tactic. I see the rings, the books, the offhand comment about some philosopher he half-remembers from Reddit, and I build him a personality. A real one. With formative memories, core wounds, and complicated opinions about monogamy. I do what every desperate romantic does: I fill in the blanks.
It’s not projection so much as narrative desperation. I want there to be a story. I want the look to mean something. And I know better. I really do. But the packaging is so convincing. I start thinking: if he’s wearing the right references, he must be someone who could get me.
That’s how the loop sustains itself. He performs the idea of someone I could fall for. I supply the emotional substance.
That’s the cruel optimism of performative depth: the belief that taste can stand in for interiority.
But I don’t think it’s vanity. I think it’s confusion. These boys aren’t trying to deceive me; they’re trying to become legible. They assemble themselves from reference points because no one ever taught them how to build from within. And in a world where personality is content, who can blame them for choosing aesthetics? But the result isn’t depth. It’s absence.
They’re not shallow, exactly. They’re undeveloped. Spiritually malnourished. You scratch the surface and find not ego, but emptiness. A well-curated void.
I used to think that was personal. Now I know it’s structural. These aren’t outliers. They’re symptoms. What we’re dealing with is a generational disorder, dressed in Acne Studios and good lighting.
So maybe next time I meet a guy like Westwood, I’ll recognize the performance for what it is. I’ll note the outfit, clock the references, remind myself it’s probably just another well-dressed void.
And then I’ll fold anyway.
But at least I’ll know I’m doing it.
spring break 