On my 50th birthday I received an AARP membership card from some relative who either had it in for me or didn't know any better. So I said to myself - "Self, if you're going to do something noteworthy on this monumental occasion of reaching the half century mark you'll have to come up with it on your own." So, I decided to give myself a birthday present in the form of permission to cease wearing neckties in all but the most formal and mandatory of occasions, these being but two -- weddings and funerals. Actually, it is only mandatory that you wear a tie to funerals. However, it's best to suit up, tie and all, for both just in case you get them mixed up, which is easy to do because they have a lot of similarities. Consider that both funerals and weddings:
are among the rare occasions when the whole family gets together.
involve the clergy in some manner.
have flowers in abundance.
consist of eulogies -- for the deceased and for the groom (again, sometimes hard to distinguish between the two)
I started wearing ties on a regular basis when I began my college teaching career at the age of 28. Although I admit they did work well as blackboard erasers, by the time I reached 50 I'd had it with their downsides. I was tired of strangling myself every morning getting them tied. Tired of getting them caught in desk drawers. Tired of catching them on fire with Bunsen burners in the lab. Tired of dipping them in bowls of soup -- our dog Linus fetched one such decorated tie out of the laundry basket and ate it. And I was tired of having my dad fuss at me because I couldn't tie a Winsor knot, whatever that was, or is. So, at the ripe old age of 50 I said "enough is enough" and all of my ties have since made it to the Good Will save two or three that my daughter and son-in-law have given me over the years. A tie with a picture of a fish being hooked isn't exactly funeral fare, but I doubt that anyone would notice.
The wearing of neckties is something men have been blindly doing for hundreds of years without ever asking the question "Is this really necessary?" The business suit necktie, that we've all come to know and love, got its start in the early 19th century and reached a peak in the mid to late 20th century when men regularly wore ties to all sorts of occasions for which ties have no practical value whatsoever. Such as: outdoor sporting events; fly fishing; family reunions; political rallies; flights on commercial airlines (Restricting blood flow to the brain while at high altitude. Now that's real smart.); and studio audiences for the likes of the Gong Show.
The most useless thing I ever bought ties for was teaching at a college in South Africa. Prior to going over there, I was told that education in South Africa was "very British" and that male faculty wore coats and ties to class. So, I spent a fortune on new stylish sport coats with shirts and ties to match. But when I got there and observe my colleagues behind the podium, I found that the coats were mostly of the saggy tweed type that dowdy retired professors potter about in. The shirts were along the lines of Hawaiian luau garb. If the tie matched the shirt it was by coincidence not design, and the skinny part of the tie was always longer than the fat part. Collectively they looked like losers from a Professor Windle Corey lookalike contest. It was during my African sojourn that I turned 50. That and the wardrobe encounters with my colleagues were the tipping points that got me to kick the tie habit.
A strange thing happened after I stopped wearing ties on a regular basis. My mind started to clear up. I'd been in a fog for over 20 years and didn't know it. But I should have. Any 'C' student in one of my physiology classes could have told me that you can't put something around your neck that restricts both breathing and blood flow to the brain for long periods of time without their being consequences. I am sure that's why during my tie wearing days I did really stupid things, such as spending an entire election cycle as a conservative Republican. And, no doubt, that is why the Gong Show remained on the air for so long.
Anyway, post neckties I began to be able to do things like distinguish between being awake and being asleep. I was able to make rational decisions, like if the milk carton says 'sell before June 1988' and it's December 1991, it would be best if you didn't drink it. I most certainly became a better teacher as evidenced by the fact that all (as in every one) of my teaching awards, deserving or not, happened post tie. And, most of all, I became less up tight and anal retentive. On this note, I'll bet that the folks who make laxatives and the folks who make neckties are in cahoots.
Remember the saying "never trust anyone over 30" that youngsters came up with a generation or two ago?! Now I am convinced that was sound advice which didn't have anything to do with ageing, but rather had to do with the fact that 30 is about the age when men back then started wearing ties on a daily basis. Let's think about this, and consider all the men folks we know of who are rarely seen without a tie. The ones that immediately come to mind are Congress, most, but not all, lawyers and judges, governors, CEOs, televangelists and the current (2020) occupant of the White House. What all these folks have in common is that there is not a single one of them you would buy a used car from (By the way, used car salesmen also fall into the habitual tie wearing category.). In other words, these guys can't be trusted, just like the youngsters a generation or two ago predicted for the over 30 crowd.
So, I advocate that all habitual tie wearing guys, and gals who may occasionally wear one, collect every tie that you have in your wardrobe and pitch em. In fact, why not take a page from the women's lib play book and have a public tie burning. World peace will surely follow.