Ask the Reader: How do you stay cool in the summer?

{this guy’s got the right idea}

On Monday, I wore cutoff shorts and a swimsuit top to the park. Tuesday, I rocked a sleeveless dress and sandals at the office. Wednesday I had on a romper. Yesterday I sported a probably-shorter-than-it-should-be skirt with a knit tank tucked in.

What, you don’t come here to hear about my personal style? Fine. The point of my sartorial story is this: As a lady, I get to wear practically no clothes in the summer and it’s still totally appropriate.

But you fellas? You get no such pass.

The fact that guys can’t throw on short shorts and a tube top when it’s ninety degrees outside just boggles my mind sometimes. …Okay, fine, I don’t usually throw on a tube top either, but it’s nice to know I can if I wanted to. But I wonder, how do you get from home to work and back again without melting into the floor like Alex Mack?

I mean, sure, I live in New York, where the commute means more walking plus extra close quarters on public transportation, all a recipe for feeling gross before you even get where you’re going. Guys in other places aren’t as subjected to the elements, so maybe it’s no so bad? Lots of you just wake up, throw on your work clothes, take about five steps to the car, where you drive in comfortable AC before pulling into the office parking lot, from which another five steps lands you inside the front door. But even so. Do you go outside for lunch? Does the sweating start the second you get out of your car?

And I contribute to it! I suggest summer-weight suits and try to ban tank tops for guys, when probably all you want to do is lie in your underwear under a damp towel in the shade somewhere as soon as the thermometer passes 80.

So tell me: what are your stay-cool tricks?

Are you secretly wearing short-sleeve dress shirts under all of your suit jackets?

Did you pick a job for its dress code that allows cotton shorts and open-toed shoes at the office?

Do you take cool comfort in the knowledge that while ladies can wear tank tops to work, we earn less money on the dollar than you do?

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