18/12/2024 10:03:06 by Arthur.D

My oldest/closest/best friend is an Armenian man, who was born and grew up in Eastern Europe, specifically Russia. He spent his adolescence in Russia, but his teenage and adult life, he was a naturalized immigrant in Los Angeles, California. There isn’t a man that can pull off dress socks with sneakers more than Mikhail. I credit him as the progenitor of wearing black dress socks with more casual/sporty shoes/sneakers. Even though it’s quite common in Eastern Europe. From my understanding; they don’t really have very “sporty” or “crew-like” socks in that part of the world. It’s certainly not a popular as formal or dress socks. Their culture is more traditional; orthodox, so they dress more modestly and more formally. Especially when going to school, kids, teens are expected to be in borderline suit and tie, or at least that’s what my friend told me it was like for him growing up in that region of Russia, which if I’m not mistaken, was Moscow.
To this day, he only wears black socks. And he only wears formal/dress socks. In high school, he would exclusively wear ribbed black socks. His socks ranged from wider-ribbed (think Calvin Klein) to narrow-ribbed (think Gold Toe metros). I kind of figured myself “out” in high school, but I knew what I was into was weird. Even today, much to the chagrin of sock enthusiasts and those that have this sock kink, I wish I was more vanilla. It’s been a life-long dream of mine to fall on my hands and knees and worship, kiss, breathe in this man’s black dress socks. Ever since sophomore year, I’ve had this inside joke where I would refer to him as my “Master”. He was a big Star Wars fan at the time, and he was telling me about the lore of the Empire; this guy *LOVES* the villainous factions in most pop culture IP’s (lol). And he was big fan of the Emperor. So, it didn’t come off as totally out of the blue or left field. He actually found it humorous. Since then, I have been his humble and loyal servant. To this day, our not-so inside joke, is shared among our other friends. I don’t think I desire anything more than to be this very handsome, hairy Eastern European man’s person doormat/bitch. He is however, straight as a fucking missile silo. And I wouldn’t be surprised if he was packing some nuclear warheads, if you know what I’m getting at. We met in the 6th grade. Truth be told, I wasn’t partially fond of him initially. In fact, for the first few years of our “friendship”, I was kind of an antagonistic asshole to him. It wasn’t until late high school, where I not only just tolerated his presence more, but I actively tried to be a proper friend to him. This guy who has been nothing but kind and wanting to be friends with me, for the last god knows how many years prior, and I found him more annoying than anything else. I warmed up to him when I came out of the closet (and told no one about for almost another 5 years lol). He’s a big nerdy type, but you wouldn’t be able to tell, apart from his t-shirts, which encamped numerous pop-culture. He’s incredibly fucking strong for his size, he works out, and boy oh boy does he have some muscle. His got a slight gut, but he’s been a gym rat out of high school, that was more than a decade ago, and now he’s rather fit. And one of the things that remains constant; is his wardrobe, and goddamn I couldn’t be happier. His dress socks are so fucking hot. I’ve made it my mission to actively buy him fancy, expensive black ribbed socks in a vain attempt to expand his drawer, because frankly, he’s settled into wearing more plain dress socks. Black. Solid. Still dress socks, so I’m immensely aroused by his socked feet, but I miss the high school days where he would exclusively wear the ribbed kind of dress socks.