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Rana

I suspect that there isn't a contradiction, but rather that what you're observing is a particularly vivid example of the different personas women have to manage in their lives. We get very different messages about what we "need" to do as women to be likeable and popular and what we "need" to do in order to be taken seriously as professionals. I'd guess, myself, that the demands on this woman in terms of clothing expectations for the young are ones that she feels uncomfortable in, both physically and mentally, but the less revealing ones she wears at work are viewed as inappropriate for non-work activities.

You suggest that she acts as if "she's caught in her underwear" - and I'd guess that's probably true. In the accepted uniform of the young these days, women's bodies are on display to a startling degree (while their male counterparts are well-covered in baggy t-shirts and large shorts) and often that's your only option if you don't want to look like a frump or shop in the stores aimed at older women or suffer in the heat. So she's probably in that unhappy situation where the only "acceptable" clothes are those that attract too much unwanted attention from people interested only in ogling and leering and so on. You suggest that she'd attract "admiration" if she behaved as confidently as she does at work; my bet is that such "admiration" in her experience includes catcalls and harassment by skeevy dudes and other such unwanted attention. I'd walk hunched and sullen and timid in such circumstances, too.

julia

What she said. At work, she can be at least reasonably confident that someone talking to her actually wants to talk to her, if only to transact business, and she has some sort of authority. In public, if she discourages people from talking to her, she's spared the discomfort of people she doesn't know sharing their reactions to her body with her.

Steve

I'm a guy, so I can't speak to the whole body-consciousness issue. But here in my middle age I have suddenly found myself adding a retail-sector job to my regular professional job for the usual reasons.

It's my first experience behind a cash register. Growing up I always worked in restaurants, but back in the kitchen. So this whole dealing with the public thing is a huge, nasty shock.

And not a shock the way you might think -- that retail customers are rude and hard to handle. In fact, most people are extremely nice, or at least neutral. They just want their groceries with the minimum hassle.

No, the shock is mainly inside me, and this is the only (tenuous) connection I might have to the young lady you describe. See, I'm just not naturally a friendly guy, to people I don't know. I'm a private person. So it's excruciating for me to be on display and under orders to be "nice" and to act like I'd like nothing better than to take the wadded-up Kleenex out of your hand (that you just finished using to wipe your kid's snotty nose) and throw it away.

What I'm saying is, there's work and there's work. The visible aspect of my work is to manipulate your items and get the right price and handle the finacial transaction. The invisible part of my work is to somehow manage to repress my honest emotions and reactions and keep that smile plastered on my face for 5 or 7 hours. Maybe that doesn't sound hard to you, but it is for me.

But here's the tricky part: one way I compensate for the unnaturallness of the setting is to act as if I'm having a really good time. I joke with the customers, make funny faces at the kids (especially babies), issue odd pronoucements and in general carry on as if I'm having a high old time.

Totally fake; totally a coping mechanism; but I doubt anyone who doesn't know me would know the difference.

I offer this as one angle on your perception of this girl's behaviour: it's quite likely that one of the girls you see is putting on an act. Maybe it's the girl in the video store, or, maybe as Rana suggests, it's the girl on the street.

actor212

o/~ Young teacher, the subject of schoolgirl fantasy....o/~

Nancy

Her spectacular breasts, if you haven't actually seen them sans clothing, might be your run-of-the-mill everyday humanoid mammary glands, but augmented/enhanced by padded and/or underwire bras. She's unlikely to be going bra-less at work. Maybe that's why her titties are less rapturously lyrical on the street - she shed the work-bra.

And the problem with dressing to attract attention is that you want to attract the attention of hot guys - but alas, non-hot guys have eyes too. And often obnoxious opinions that they are too happy to share with you, whether you ask for their opinion or not.

Dave the H.

You basically gave her birthdate, either August 1 or 2, 1988. The astrologer's POV:

* She does not feel like she is loved, feels there's a huge hole in that area, but can feel more comfortable with people older than her, especially in a structured situation. (Venus-Saturn...and Venus in Gemini, she likes to talk)

* She also has a come-closer, come-closer, stay-there, go-back, come-closer ping-pong attitude toward relationships, drawing boys closer and pushing them away and drawing them in again (Venus-Uranus)

* She feels a need to be independent of structure, at the same time she greatly needs structure (Saturn-Uranus)

* She is happiest when she can control others, when the look up to her (Sun in Leo, Pluto)

Just some notes.

stinger

The fashionable clothing available to young women (and older) today is based on Britney Spears and her ilk. They are supposed to look SEXXX-AYYY. Whether they want to or not. Whether they welcome the ogling and catcalls of strangers, or would prefer to look sexy only to their actual boyfriend. The Male Gaze rules in our society.

This is one young woman who is grateful for a polo shirt uniform and will be relieved to reach her 30s and have some of the pressure taken off -- except that now all women between 25 and, what, 65, 75? are supposed to be MILFs and Cougars. The pressure is NEVER off, unless you adopt the nun/prairiemuffin look early on.

Simstim

If you haven't read it already, I'd recommend Erving Goffman's "The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life" (Wiki page here). It's an old (1959) treatment of "all the world's a stage", but it's a hoot, partly because of Goffman's style but primarily because of the examples, e.g. the college girls who act less intelligently in the company of boys, or the Scottish crofters who hover at the front gate to their neighbours garden so they've got time to be noticed in order for their neighbour to get the best china out before they knock at the door.

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