No One Knows How to Tie a Bow Tie

Last month, I attended a wedding for which the invitation said “black tie optional.” This felt like a challenge. “Black tie optional.” Could’ve just said, “Black tie if you have class, wear your suit with a hole under the pocket if you’re a bum who sits on his couch all day blogging about the NIT.”

I am not a bum.

I don’t own a tuxedo. I used to, but it had tails (don’t worry about it), and half of it recently vanished alongside another two blazers, which makes me think all said items were caught in an accidental Goodwill drop-off. It had a white tie anyway. A white bowtie with a clip. The kind a child wears.

I am not a child.

I responded to this invitation as any reasonable, optimistic, proud man would do. I ordered a tuxedo rental online, and I asked for a real bowtie. None of the clip shit. I wanted to tie one myself. Surely, I could do it.

This was reckless of me.

I did end up tying it, and tying it successfully, but having put myself in a position to be in a hurry, this was an occasion of great stress. I came out harried, sweaty, and terrified that the bowtie would come untied during the night and I would be unable to retie it, instead having to seek out an old man and stranger to reconstruct my dignity. Thankfully, it didn’t come untied. But I did spend most of the wedding in a state of anxious terror.

This is a lot of backstory, but I think it’s necessary to give the context within which I, watching video after instructional video and looking at diagram after instructional diagram, discovered the following:

Nobody knows how to tie a bowtie.

Sure, sure, plenty of people tie bowties. I bet there are folks—Ken Rosenthal comes to mind—who tie bowties most every day.

They don’t know how they do it.

They don’t! Hear me out.

When the videos get to the step between the one where you drape one side over the middle of the other and the one where you adjust the tightness to even out the sides, the speaker usually gets a little quiet. The written instructions get short and vague. You watch close, or you look close, or you try to deconstruct a tied one in reverse tying order, and you cannot learn what is happening. It looks like a magic trick—half-tied bowtie one moment, fully tied bowtie the next. It looks like this, it looks like a magic trick, because it is a magic trick. It is magic. Tying a bowtie is magic.

Thankfully, you can still do it. Just grab that dangling side and shove it into the general area you think the loop is in. It might come out on the other side. If it does, thank your lucky stars. The magic has chosen you too. If it doesn’t, though? You just have to keep trying. There’s nothing you’re missing. You’re not making a mistake. The process is simply magic. That’s how it works.