Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

When the milkman came to deliver today, a gentleman in shoddy and kinda dirty dress was passing by. 

The milkman asked me in hushed tones whether the gentleman had a mental problem, explaining to me that he, the milkman, had noticed the gentleman often and that the latter didn't talk much and dressed himself in an unkempt fashion. I told the milkman that my mother uses the same definition to describe me. 

The milkman burst into laughter. For some reason, he didn't take me to be mentally challenged.

Incidentally the other day, when I knocked on a door, the lady of the house opened the door and handed me their garbage bag - she had mistaken me for the garbage man. 

I was taken back to a discussion I had had with a friend about 8 or 9 years back. She was talking about a classmate of hers in her boarding school many decades back, incidentally the classmate was from the same village as me, who used to dress in ridiculous looking clothes and was constantly tormented by all his classmates. Apparently only my friend helped that fellow through a difficult time in school. I remember asking her the same question - my dress is kinda similar to that fellow's but no one has tormented me on account of my dress. 

There, then, is something beyond poor dress that makes a man seem deranged and provokes people to torment him. What is that thing?

Perhaps it's how he carries himself. Maybe his demeanor indicates that he is a normal man who is dressed poorly and is quite different from another man who is challenged and hence perhaps dressed poorly.

It's an interesting bit of coincidence that the lady's (the one who handed me the garbage bag) husband is also from the same village as me.

Note:
Before you rush to a rash conclusion, note that there are many people in our village who do dress well.

Additional Reading:
http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2017/07/men-in-tears.html