You Wear Blouses

Speaking of clothes, nothing is more indicative of a metrosexual than the many ridiculous trends coming out of the fashion world.  You can chalk it up to the European tradition of getting away with outrageous trends like powdered wigs and Speedos, but for the 90 per cent of the male population that doesn’t look Euro enough to pull off a manbag, it’s just absurd.

Keeping track of current fashion trends is one thing, but if it gets to a point where you’re slavishly adhering to them, that’s the exact opposite of personal style.  Just because a respected designer makes a low-cut sweater with feminine details like big wooden buttons doesn’t make fashion-conscious guys obliged to wear it.  You have to ask yourself the question, do you even like pink?  That’s fine if you do, the option is there, but you won’t be repressing yourself if you stick to more stereotypically masculine colours like blue or brown.

All About Money

There’s an extreme dichotomy where a guy is either a frat-boy slob with no taste or a complete fop who spends three hours in the bathroom waxing.  Metrosexuality is a response to the former and in the best case, is an effort to create well-balanced men who have a wide range of cultural interests, including cooking, fine food and drink, and a more sophisticated taste in the aesthetics of their home and wardrobe.

Rejecting it is not rejecting these principles, but rather the empty consumerism that is, unfortunately, the other side of the coin.  Interest in aesthetics becomes obsession with aesthetics and a balance of masculine and feminine becomes total feminization of traditional masculinity.  There’s nothing wrong with feminine aesthetics, if they work for you ― just look at Fabio.  But all joking aside, metrosexuality was supposed be of benefit to male identity, but is twisting it around and diluting it, and that is pathological.