The Funky Socks Guy
An identity crisis is keeping his feet warm and feelings cold.
“I guess it all started happening two Christmases ago.”
A man with short pants and long socks sits in a therapy-brown office chair. His face and features are a blur. People’s eyes are always drawn to his feet, where the only pop of life and colour exists.
His socks are a deep blue with bright orange Lemurs on them - the Leemurs are dancing, having a great time. However, this man, is not.
The therapist is staring at the socked-man’s feet. She hasn’t once looked up into this man’s eyes. She chimes in,
“Tell me about Christmas.”
The therapist can’t even remember this man’s name, but the fella with the socks has been a patient for weeks. She remembers the socks though: the brightly spotted ones, the intentionally mismatched ones, the ones with TV characters, the argyle ones, the ones with clever catch-phrases - every time a new pair, brighter and more boisterous than the last.
The man begins the story he’s whined out many times already:
“I didn’t ask for them, but my mom, she put them in my stocking and I pulled them out. ‘Stockings in a stocking’ she said. So all this came from a bad mom joke. They weren’t anything too funky at that point I suppose. Just like an argyle pattern, with some really obnoxious and clashing colours. I thought they were kind of cool so I wore them a few times. And yeah, I got lots of compliments at work and stuff. It felt good at the start. People were noticing me for once.”
“It sounds like you appreciated being noticed.”
“Yes. I did. At the start. But then, everyone in the office started introducing me to clients saying, ‘This is Bryan: he’s one of those funky sock guys.’
Bryan “the funky socks guy” pauses.
It’s like his grief is a funky sock too and it’s stuck in his throat. He never looked at his therapist, instead, always at the mirror to the side of the room, where his socks were the only thing he could ever notice.
After a few beats of pause. All eyes on the socks, the therapist chimes in again.
“And how did it feel to be labelled like that?”
“Like what?”
”Like, ‘the funky socks guy.’”
“Like, at this point I only had the one pair. And I didn’t even buy them. It was my mom! It wasn’t a decision I made for myself. And I’ll stress, they weren’t even that funky at this point. It was just like a sock with a pattern on it. But then my work anniversary came, and when I came into work there was a bag on my desk. Inside, was three more pairs of socks. One with a mismatched checker pattern, one with jagged diagonal lines, and another pair that one one foot said ‘kick” and one foot said ‘ass.’”
“And what was your reaction to this gift?”
“I wanted to be polite, so I said, ‘thanks guys - I love them’”
“Was that an honest reaction?”
“I mean what’s honest? I appreciated that my colleagues thought of celebrating me. But they gave me a gift based on an identity THEY prescribed to ME. But if I were to be really honest, I’d say these socks were crossing from funky into ugly. I didn’t even like them that much. I just didn’t have the heart to tell them. Maybe I should have. They knew I played guitar, and liked to cook, and wanted new headphones. There were other gifts that could of suited. But they went with the socks. I think that was easiest. I don’t know...maybe I’m being ungrateful.”
“You feel how you feel. Do you feel ungrateful?”
“It’s nice. I guess. I’m just thinking now maybe they wouldn’t have given me a gift at all if they hadn’t noticed my socks. But the funky socks guy just doesn’t feel like who I really am. So now, those three pairs of socks sat in my dresser, for a while and I never wore them, but out of the blue some friends invited me to the bar, and I hadn’t done laundry yet. So I wore the checker socks. My friend Jonas noticed them and said to everybody, ‘hey look! Bryan is one of those funky sock guys now.’ And I don’t know, I just saw a glean in everybody’s eyes. All at once. ”
“And how did that feel? To have your friends also attach this new identity to you?”
“It felt wrong. They were wrong to do that. I even told Jonas and everybody right then, that they were just a gift from work. Not a decision I had made for myself. But it seemed to roll right out of his head. People were being nice about it. They said that the socks suited me. That they could see me being one of those ‘funky sock guys.’ But I don’t know, what does that even mean?”
“What do you think it means?”
“It sounds to me like someone with no personality. Someone who has to get overly-artsy sock makers to prescribe a sense of creativity and self-expression for them. Someone who has no substance of their own.”
“Well do you think that describes you?”
“I mean, I didn’t think so at the time. But I don’t even know anymore. Maybe because my friends and family think that’s true about me, it could be. My birthday was the following week after they saw me in the bar. And can you guess what every single one of my friends got me?”
“Funky socks?”
“Yes. Funky socks. Twelve new monthly subscription boxes from everyone at my birthday party. I receive 12 new pairs of funky socks each month in the mail. And what am I supposed to do? I had to make a spreadsheet to keep track of who gave me what socks so I could wear them around the friends who gave them to me. I have to show that I appreciate them putting thought into a gift. But like, was there even any thought? It seems like everyone finally didn’t have to figure out anything else about me. They had the socks.”
“It sounds like you are angry right now.”
“Well no shit. Anytime I meet someone new, all they do is look at my feet. And they’ll say those three fucking words, ‘funky. socks. guy.’ And no! I’m not. I’m Bryan! I volunteer with Big Brothers Big Sisters, I do improv, I’m in a Phish coverband with Jonas and Maven. I have lots of other things going on in my life.”
“Then why do these comments get to you, Bryan?” the therapist finally could remember his name. At least for now.
“It’s because I didn’t choose this.”
“No you didn’t. But you can choose how you react. What’s something you could do to let your friends and your colleagues know how you feel about the socks?”
“Well I tried not wearing them. I tried just wearing some plain black sports socks to work.”
“And what happened then?”
“My work colleagues made a big fuss about it. They said, ‘those are pretty tame socks for you Bryan, are you feeling okay?’ Like, they got worried. Then one of the employees went to their desk, handed me a pair of Spongebob Squarepants socks. They told me they were going to give them to their son to cheer them up because they’d been bullied at school. But thought I could use them more.”
“Obviously you didn’t take them.”
“I did take them. I put them on right then and there. Just so all my colleagues could go back to work and leave me alone.”
“Why do you think you did that?”
“I don’t know. I guess I’d rather have people think I’m a funky sock guy then someone without any purpose at all. So since then, I just keep wearing the socks.”
“And did anything change?”
“No. Every celebration: house warming, anniversaries, parties, sometimes just because, people will gift me socks. After Christmas this year, I had to go to Ikea to get a new dresser for the hundreds of socks I have.”
“Here’s a question: why haven’t you just asked people to stop giving you socks?”
“I have. And people give them to me anyway. It’s like the socks have become the only thing people know about me. ‘Bryan. The funky socks guy.’ It’s all I am now. They don’t know what else to get me. Every other aspect of my personality has been replaced by these coloured cotton nightmares. I’ve asked for other things. Made lists. But every gift. Every time. It’s funky socks for the funky socks guy.”
By this point Bryan is in tears. He took a sock with Pewee Herman’s face out of his shirt pocket to wipe them away. The socks that lost their matches became handkerchiefs - for some reason Bryan still had a hard time throwing them away. They were gifts after all.
“Bryan. I’m going to level with you. I’ve been a therapist for a long time, and not once has anyone ever spent this long talking about one problem. This is our fourth month of sessions and you bring this up every week. In my professional opinion, it seems like you can take agency to stop accepting socks. But perhaps, is there a part of you that likes them? Is there a part of you that actually embraces this identity? Perhaps coming to terms with that is a good place to start.”
Bryan put the Peewee handkerchief-sock back in his pocket. His face firmed up, looked away from the mirror, and he stared at his therapist’s face for the first time. And for the first the first time, his therapist was looking directly in his eyes and not at his feet.
“I do like being noticed. I like the fact that I can walk into a room and be the person everyone is staring at. I just wish I had made that decision for myself.”
"Can you make that decision now, Bryan?”
”I guess I can stop wearing them. But I’m afraid there might be nothing left at this point.”
“In my opinion, you have two options. Stop wearing the socks. Or keep wearing them. Either way, you’ll still be Bryan. And you can make decisions about who you want to be.”
The next day, Bryan was at work. Wearing no socks at all. His colleagues again were concerned. The same concerned worker (who's son was still getting bullied) tried to give Bryan some Iron Man socks when Bryan stopped him.
“No thank you. I don’t need socks to express myself anymore. I’m perfectly fine being the ‘no socks guy’ from here on out. It’s more of a reflection of me. All you’ll see is Bryan from here on out. Check out my ankles, see my flesh. I’m Bryan. I’m here. uncovered and unabashed. In all my glory.”
“That’s super gross Bryan.” said the man, who was also Bryan’s supervisor. “Put on some socks please.” He held out the Iron Man socks. “This is a workplace.”
But he refused.
Later Bryan got called into the HR office.
“Now Bryan, we have a dress code here at the office.”
“I’m not going to do it anymore Coleen. I’m done with socks altogether. I don’t want to cover up who I am.”
“Well then you can’t work here anymore.”
“That’s fine by me.”
And Bryan then took off his shoes. Left them on Coleen’s desk and walked home. Never wore shoes or socks since. It’s been weeks. His feet are so filthy it is hard for people on the bus to sit beside him. Eventually people started recognizing him, as “that creepy dude who’s always walking around barefoot.”
But Bryan felt as good as he had since before that Christmas two years ago. Even though no one really wanted to be around him anymore.
Bryan had very dirty feet, his foot odour was penetrating, and Bryan was like he always was: never saying anything interesting, asking for emotional labour from others while giving none in return, constantly centring himself in the conversation, and whining a lot.
Maybe he was a funky socks guy after all. Maybe he was Bryan all along. Either way, he was a privileged white dude and his problem was never the socks. He was the problem. Because he’d rather be a victim than actually worry about using his privilege for anything truly important.