The Pros of Cons

The first time I saw a pair, they were being worn by a boy who was in a play I had just been cast in. I had never seen him either, before that day. A year behind me in school, there had been no reason for our paths to cross, until the planets aligned and we showed up at the same place and time, on a high school stage. I was a Senior, he was a Junior, and he walked into my life wearing white, low top Converse. I had never seen low tops before. Even high top Chucks were a rare sighting back in the late 80’s, so his style stood out to me from the beginning. I found out through the grapevine that he had transferred to our school that year. My growing crush was making me unusually brave, and the idea of asking him to Prom crossed my mind. If he was new in town, maybe he was unattached? But then I overheard him telling someone he had already been asked. Thankfully I dodged that bullet. I’m not sure I could have survived the mortification of rejection, having to see him every day at play practice. As it turned out, our small cast of six became pretty close during that time. We spent a lot of time together. And the boy with the Cons became my first boyfriend. Just a few weeks shy of me graduating high school, I went on my first date with him. He gave me my first kiss, as we lay on our backs, side by side, staring up at a starlit sky, in early June. It was naïve, idealistic, young love. Fumbling in its inexperience, our paths diverging almost as quickly as they’d crossed. He went away for the summer. I started college that Fall. Circumstances changed and our relationship faded into the background. But in that gleaming moment in time, the boy in the Cons was my guy. He set the standard.

Fast forward a few years to my first day in acrylic painting class, at the city college where I was finishing up my A.A. Degree. The class was filled with mostly older white women, obviously taking the class as a diversion, not a requirement to graduate. As I looked around the room, the only people my age were a shy looking boy, who rarely made eye contact, and a girl wearing a pair of white, low top Converse. I knew immediately she was my kind of person. Her sense of style was a language I was well versed in. I’d learned to speak it with my first boyfriend, and now I was conversational, if not fluent. We became fast friends, with 3 hours, twice a week, to do nothing but chat while we painted. Those Converse led to many conversations. And a friendship that has spanned decades.

Ever since that first boy, Converse have become a litmus test for whether or not a person is approachable, or even worth getting to know. They are conversation starters. Over the years, I’ve acquired quite a collection. They range from camouflage, to Dr. Seuss, candy cane striped, and Halloween orange, that I customized with pumpkin shoe laces. But my favorite are still the iconic white. They go with everything, if you’re a certain kind of person. A girl that pairs them with a sundress. A boy who wears them without socks, showing off his soccer calves, muscles cutting a perfect line. The curved edge of the canvas dipping below his ankle. Coolness woven into the fabric. They conjure memories of simpler times. Back when first loves were yet to be had, and friends were a shoe-in, if you knew what to look for.