Why I Hate Shorts

Shorts should be a last resort. Here’s why.

I hate summer. I hate being hot. I hate sweating. I love being outside but when it hits 90F outside, what’s the point? Add in East Coast humidity and it’s an existential nightmare.

Doubly so for us brave few who fight the good fight against shorts.

In a perfect world, I’d wear this all summer. In reality, I can hardly survive wearing a tank top, pants, and Birkenstocks.

Look, I understand why normal people wear shorts in summer. But I searched so darn hard to find the very few pants that I can fit into, let alone that I like. I refuse to put them away for an entire (and frankly, far too long) season.

The cost, of course, is my sanity for that miserable five-month stretch between May and October. Sweat-soaked clothes can be washed. My will to suffer summer cannot ever be replenished.

And so, you may well ask me: Why not just wear shorts? Well, my friend, I will tell you.

But first, my extended random thought of the week: I love old-man running sneakers.

One of my first favorite “ugly” HOKAs, and one that fit irritatingly narrow: The Mafate Speed 2 rerelease from 2023

Okay, if you know me, this is not a new thought. I’ve been saying this for years, not least because I’m an old man (spiritually). But after many years of mixed results with HOKA shoes, I recently had unexpected success with two unexpectedly ugly sneakers that reaffirmed my love for these things.

I like this genre of sneaker because it goes so hard on “ugly” dad-shoe aesthetics — flashy uppers made of mesh and molded overlays, thick soles, perhaps some gaudy colorways — that it circles around to being excellent. I also like that, because one bad colorway can ruin an otherwise excellent shoe, there’s a lot of impetus upon the user to trial-and-error their way to personal preference. These sneakers have, and demand, personality. Oh, and they’re comfortable. Above all else!

I used to stick with HOKA because its thick soles were supposedly comfy. I also had to give it credit for producing the first all-black dad shoe that didn’t look like Shoes For Crews.

The Bondi 7 was the first all-black thickster I actually liked. It’s still a banger, TBH, and HOKA actually brought it back this year

HOKA’s been turning out some great stuff this year — the Stinson Breeze, Tor Summit (in cow print!), Speedgoat 2 — but I don’t often care to buy new shoes. Too expensive, too deep a rabbit hole, even though there’s some amazing stuff out there.

But I stumbled upon a pair of nearly new all-black On Cloudmonsters at REI’s Used Gear section — the best sneaker finds in New York! RIP REI NYC!! — for $50.

I’ve always thought On shoes were unforgivably ugly. Squat, weirdly streamlined, and even more weirdly proportioned. They remind me of the knockoff discount runners you’d find at Payless. And, just like Payless shoes, dads love them, especially that one awful shoe that has laces but is basically a slip-on.

This thing. Hate it. Even an all-black colorway can’t hide the ugly. What even is this?? Flat and dumb sole. Fake shoes.

And yet, I love these Cloudmonsters. I must admit that they’re the most comfortable sneaker I’ve ever worn, and that’s saying something. They’re lightweight, easy, and actually a solid shape on-foot. For the first time since my initial brush with HOKA, I found an all-black shoe that works. And I can’t believe it came from On. They even make a better version that doesn’t have the enormous logo on the outside. WTF. When did it get good?

I used to loathe this shoe and this brand. Dunno what happened. But since the sneakers are as ugly as ever, I must assume it’s me. To paraphrase our big genius President, “I didn’t change. I got worse.”

So, here I was, enjoying a shoe so ugly that I never thought I’d like it, when another REI-core sneaker comes out of nowhere.

I’ve always wanted to like Altra, the supposedly good-for-your-foot running-shoe brand, but everything I’ve found (albeit in the Used Gear section) is either unspeakably ugly or fits badly. The toe box is intended to be roomy to give your dogs true freedom of movement but it also makes the fit different, so it’s a little fussy and I never found the results worth it.

But and wander’s latest Altra collab rocks. For no reason.

Sounds crazy, yes, because the colorway is ugly in a generic geriatric way and the giant branding is absurd.

But they’re actually great. IRL, the visuals hit this sweet spot of awkward-cool, feeling entirely unintentional in the way that most actually good things are. Hefty but sleek and anchored by that Vibram sole. Yum. But if this wasn’t a collab with a broadly respected Japanese brand, most people probably wouldn’t look twice. I probably wouldn’t!

Just another instance of Ordinary Thing being worse than Ordinary Thing, Japan. Many such cases.

And if that’s how I feel about shoes, a subject I’m often ambivalent about, you can imagine how I feel about shorts.