I realised a long time ago that I have a complicated relationship with jeans.

I wanted the latest pair of jeans and my sister (the one who had to pay for all those little desires of mine) hated jeans.

For some reason, she thought that if I wore jeans I would try to be part of the “cool kids” in my community and start doing all the things they did for fun – like smoking, drinking and partying. She told me that wearing jeans was like someone getting a tattoo so that they can be accepted into a gang.

My brother was no different. He was always pointing out the kids that wear skinnies and calling them the rotten apples of our community. He hated skinnies! When I asked him why he hated skinnies, he’d point out that people’s butts were hanging out and also support my sister’s reason.

Pause for a second now and add my brother’s hatred for skinny jeans to that of my sister for anything that looks like a jean.

I told you I have a complicated relationship with jeans-especially skinnies!

So was this the end of my story with jeans?

Well, being the rebel that I am, I decided that I needed to go and make money somehow to support my jean-obsession. There was no ways I was going to allow myself to be the guy that always dressed formally like my sister wanted me to.

I became a man with a plan. Step one: wash as many cars in my street as I could find. Step two: sell as many marshmallows as my young customers’ parents would allow.

You’re probably wondering by now if I even achieved anything with the little plan I had.

Well, I’ve got good news for you. As soon as I’d done enough car washes and sold enough marshmallows, I went and got myself a mean pair of hundred-and-eighty-rand jeans.

Fast forward to about four months ago and you have me going to my favourite shop and telling myself that I’m on a hunt for slim-fit jeans only.

Why slim-fit (or as I call them: “slimmies”)?

It’s simple, really. Wearing these jeans meant that I’d still look almost as good as guys who wear skinnies, but I’d avoid trouble with my brother, because I wouldn’t actually be wearing skinnies.

Interestingly, this plan didn’t work out as smoothly as I had hoped.

I bought a pair of jeans that I thought were slim-fit, but when I went to a different shop I found the exact same jeans in the skinny-jean section of that shop. In other words, I bought skinnies! My favourite shop had really screwed me over.

And I started worrying about how I would explain my mistake to my brother. But, while a part of me was panicking, the other part of me started celebrating. It started to find all sorts of reasons why my “skinny-jean mistake” was a good thing.

I realised that the best plan to convince my brother and my sister was to just be the Sicelo that they’d always known and loved.

Sure enough, a month later my plan showed signs of working.

“Of course you’re gonna be broke; you’re always buying these ice-cream-cone jeans of yours” was how my brother jokingly responded when I borrowed money from him. (Just picture an ice cream cone and then a pair of skinny jeans.)

Because skinnies had never been something that he joked about before, I started to believe that this was one battle I had definitely won.

As for my sister, well, she bought me a fresh pair of skinnies as a thank-you gift for a favour just last week, so I’m pretty sure she’s also cool now.

This, luckily enough, is one of those stories that had a happy ending to it. I’m now the guy who doesn’t feel nervous about what people think of my style, because I know I’ve got it.

#ChatBack: Tell us what your style is.

Did you also struggle to convince others that your style is cool?

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Congratulations to 320philo, winner of this blog’s comment.

“There’s Nothing Really Serious About My Style. I Wear In A Normal Like Others,But I Do Have Some Fewer Clothes That Makes Me A Stylist Female.I’ve Ever Had A Problem With My Sister Not Liking My Style. She Was Saying My Style Isn’t Cool For Me,But I Felt So Comfortable And Confident In The”