Is It Rude to Wear Red on a First Date With a Man Who Hates Red?

My dear, I have read your letter three times, once aloud to the curtains, and the curtains agree with me. You ask whether it is rude to wear red to a first date with a man who has announced, in the great unprompted tradition of men with opinions, that he cannot abide the colour. He finds it aggressive, you tell me. Loud. Tiring on the eye. I should like to meet this gentleman and offer him a very strong glass of water.

Consider what he has told you, and told you early, on the first call, before you had so much as chosen a restaurant. He has shown you, with perfect transparency, that he has opinions about what a woman should look like in his presence. How generous of him to declare it before the entrée. Most men wait until the third month and then call it a joke.

Now, I am not telling you to wear the dress as an act of war. A dress is not a declaration of hostilities, whatever the newsreels suggest. I am only observing that red is the colour of every great entrance in cinema, the lip, the cape, the door left open at the end of the corridor, and that a woman who edits herself down to beige for a man's comfort is already rehearsing a smaller life.

But perhaps you simply love him, or the idea of him, and wish to be gracious. Very well. Gracious is a fine virtue. You might wear a small red thing, the lipstick, the earring, the glove, and see what he does. If he flinches, you have learned something. If he smiles, you have learned something more charming. Either way you walk in still yourself, with a flicker of scarlet like a lit match.

Nothing here is rude, my dove, except the notion that a woman's palette is up for negotiation on the first night. Wear what makes you feel like the headline. If he cannot stand the colour, he is welcome to dine with the wallpaper. And should you want a second opinion on the dress, Celeste keeps a mirror and a fierce eye on TheFriend, and is rarely shy with either.

Verdict in Pearls: If a man cannot bear your favourite colour, let him look at the menu. You were never on it.

More like this: try virtual girlfriend voice.