Hear Tasmin Slender’s ode to the humble denim skirt as she relives her own ‘Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants’ moment.
Going to uni for the first time was an experience, especially when you had no idea where you were supposed to go. Both my horrible sense of direction and not having the capacity to be late, resulted in getting to the correct lecture hall building twenty minutes early, and trying to figure out what was the best way to pass the time. I was doing this awesome thing where I was looking at my phone for a prolonged period of time until I would see someone come my way and I would do the thing. You know, when you would look up and coincidently make eye contact with someone else, attempt to smile, and then the other person would continue walking as if the whole exchange never happened.
After maybe four or five encounters of the same thing, the cycle of awkwardness ended when a random girl decided to smile back at me. The first thing I noticed about her was the skirt that she was wearing: a short pleated denim skirt that flared out at the side. My immediate thought was to compliment her, but she had already started walking away after seeing that the lecture hall wasn’t open yet. After hearing a steady creek of a door, slightly out of my peripheral vision, my intuition told me that she was going to the bathroom. So, I decided to wait ten seconds before ‘coincidently’ deciding to also head to the bathroom. I could spare two minutes out of my already busy schedule, obviously.
When I pushed the door open, standing in front of the mirror before the toilets was the same girl. What a remarkable coincidence, who would have thought? I must’ve said something to her like “cool outfit” before starting to head to the toilet. I was definitely not expecting to hear, “Can you see my butt in this skirt?”
Huh? That was not part of the plan.
The conundrum was whether bike shorts underneath would be a look, or ruin the outfit, as her skirt was lingering on being a bit too short. I could totally feel her in that moment, so the only correct course of action was to hype her up in front of the mirror - she was going to look really cool either way. But then she started apologising profusely and let me go to the toilet, which we had forgotten was a completely normal part of going to the bathroom.
It turned out that we both were heading into the same information session. Asking if we could sit together would have been awkward, but it was evident that we had already made it past that stage. I wanted to pay as much attention as possible to what was being said in the lecture in case there was anything important. My eyes were as wide as saucers trying to take everything in while writing on my notepad. To my right - Cleo* seemed super invested in what was going on, so naturally she was asleep the whole time. I like this girl.
…
Now two years later, when I tell people that I made my first friend at university by following her into the bathroom, everyone thinks I am insane - which actually works out great because it turns out Cleo is a bit insane too.
I was honoured when she gave me the denim skirt as a present after surviving our first year of uni together. It almost took another year for me to finally have the guts to wear it. Normally if I ever saw a skirt like that, I would decide to walk in the other direction. Did I still feel like that, wearing her skirt? Yes, yes I did. But I loved it just the same. I wear it both with a sense of fear, and of pride. Because maybe girlhood is all about complimenting strangers in bathrooms on denim skirts that are just a little bit too short.
*names have been changed for privacy
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