The heat of summer will drive men to do unsavory things. Yesterday I saw a gent who, by all appearances was hovering around the age of sixty, walking the neighborhood without a shirt on. In general, this is to be considered inappropriate behavior.

I will say that he seemed to have a nice overall tan which tells me that he doesn’t have a job and at some point in life he had adopted the practices of an outdoorsman and forever after fancied himself a nature boy. Still, while a tanned body can be a fat guy’s (or gal’s) best friend it doesn’t excuse this dude from violating (and every single person in the neighborhood felt violated) one of society’s most basic and foundational rules, that is – men over the age of twenty-one shall keep their shirts on at all times.

Nothing is more repugnant than the naked torso of fat old guy.

Typically men don’t want to see other male bodies. In point of fact, women would mostly like to avoid it as well. There are instances of athletes and fitness instructors and injectors of various hormones who are occasionally cited as exceptions to the rule and that’s fine, but in the vast majority of circumstances, once the high school years have passed, gravity and thousands of other physiological and psychological factors clearly mandate that men should stay shirted in public.

Now apparently if you’re a politician or studio executive it’s okay to drop your pants at any time, but even then, grown men should have the decorum to leave their shirts on.

Of course, if you’re at the beach – with your feet physically on the sand – then shirts can come off because there’s a reasonable possibility that swimming may ensue. Mentally speaking, it’s a lot less traumatic to see lots of old fucks without their shirts than just one. At the beach, shirtless old men are just a faceless panorama of flab, while one viewed alone, say walking with his wife in your neighborhood, is much more real and creepy and grotesque.

So what’s with take-your-shirt-off guy? It could be that he just overheats quickly, but the real truth is that an older 05guy that will take off his shirt at a ballgame or a party or the amusement park just has no self-awareness. He thinks he’s better-looking than he is, thinks he’s aging gracefully, when in fact he’s shaming his family and turning everyone’s stomach.

If you’re no longer in school, the rules about this kind of thing are pretty clear – find your shirt, keep it on.

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