“I don’t dress nicely all the time because I WANT to. I dress nicely because I don’t have any t-shirts left,” one of my male friends shouted as I once again sat there feeling sorry that our gender has to deal with them. The topic of tonight’s discussion: shack shirts. Not surprisingly, guys kind of hate when you take their clothes and never give them back. But it was a shock to me just how adamant they were that the shack shirt system is unfair. After all, if they were stealing our clothes after sleeping with us, we’d call them all perverts.
“If I could find the girl who created the idea of shack shirts, I would punch her in the throat.” It’s a strong sentiment, but I guess I get it. I mean, what do we do with these shirts? Occasionally trot them out to make our next fling jealous when he realizes that shirt with his rival fraternity’s letters is just a liiiiiittle too big for us to have ordered for ourselves? Burn them when it’s over? God forbid we return them, that would make us look like sane, well-adjusted, functioning members of polite society. We do have a reputation to uphold, after all.
“At least she told me I was never getting them back.” Apparently, for guys, honesty is key. You have to let them know that their shirt is yours now and for all of time or they’re going to get pissed. Which I guess I get. I mean, I would rather just get robbed and know I was never getting my money back than have someone borrow it and never pay me back. The resentment would just slowly eat away at me. This, according to my male friends, is the equivalent of just taking their shirt. And no, no matter how many times you say, “oh no! I forgot your shirt!” when you go back over, they never believe you. They know you did it on purpose. They always know.
“I NEVER GAVE THAT BITCH ANYTHING!” The whole idea of shack shirts is kind of weird right? You’re literally saying, “been there, done that, got the t-shirt.” One morning, a friend’s ex-friend with benefits, as she walked through the door after trudging across campus at 7 am, smiled at me: “look what I got!” she shouted, as she pulled out not one, not two, but THREE shack shirts, the holy grail of shackers. Except, when I made this point the other night, it turned out she had stolen them. Without his knowledge. Off of his floor. She was so convinced she needed to prove to her friends that he liked her and that they were a thing that she literally stole dirty shirts off of his floor, that she wasn’t even entirely sure were his and could have easily been his roommates. That’s next-level crazy. He didn’t even know that she had taken shirts from his room until we talked about that story. Why the hell would you take someone’s clothing without at least letting them know you had it?
“Stop burning our shit!” This one was pretty serious for them. Apparently, if you steal their shirts, they would really, really prefer that you give them back rather than burn them. If you’re not going to use them, don’t burn the 12-20 dollars they invested in it. And especially try not to burn them on the front lawn of their house. They really hate that.
In the end, I’m not arguing that we get rid of shack shirts at all. They’re the most comfortable things on the planet. I live with mine and he still has like four shirts that I get top priority for wearing at night. I take them with me when I travel without him, in a totally not crazy way. So I get it. I understand the appeal. But at least let him know that he’s not getting his shirt back, and if he says no, let him keep it. Chances are he might be attached to it. Just kidding. You just did him a solid and had sex with him. He owes you this.