WHIM vs PRACTICALITY

There is whim and there is practicality.

1. You don't like people wearing shoes in your house.

This is practicality.

Shoes carry dirt and, since you'd rather not spend time cleaning so much when it can all be avoided by simply taking off your shoes, you don't wear shoes at home and ask your guests to do the same.

I remember that I used to do this in Nigeria. A lot of Asian countries observe this culture.

In fact, the Japanese are so particular about hygiene that they even have slippers that can only be worn inside the house (they reserve some pairs for their guests) and slippers that are only meant for the bathroom.

This is a request that I wouldn't frown at, but would observe diligently and even emulate if I ever spend thousands of dollars to buy a Persian rug.

2. You don't like people wearing certain clothes to your house

This is a whim.

Neither you nor the environment you live in will suffer any type of consequences because of the clothes that a person is putting on. You are just being a bigot and a control freak.

We must really stop attaching morals to people's choice of clothes. How people dress is not a reflection of their character. The most wicked people I have ever met in this life literally dressed like Nollywood housekeepers.

We can criticize someone's choice of clothes if they do not fit the occasion, but setting up a dress code for your guests is completely unacceptable.

Right now, I believe that many people are wearing love goggles so they do not see how ridiculous that kind of request is. Because if it was some random person telling them that they cannot come to his or her house wearing synthetic hair, they would tell that person to go and hug a tree.

But right now, the person is a prospective in-law and there is marriage involved, so it makes sense to "bend" that one time. Except, it is not.

Even if I were a skirt person and I had plenty of skirts in my wardrobe, I wouldn't accept wearing a skirt every time your bigotted parent is around. I dress according to my mood and the way I am feeling my body on that particular day. So if it's a no-skirt day for me, I won't wear it, and if I wear it, I won't be happy.

I have had really bad days because I was wearing clothes/shoes that I did not feel like wearing.

Clothes are something very personal to me. They are ways in which I express myself. When you impose a dress code on me without a practical reason attached to it, other than "I don't like it", I receive it as a threat to my freedom of expression.

So, drop the love goggles and think of this within a bigger context.

Today it's your trousers, tomorrow it will be something else.