In the Philippines, because it’s so hot and they aren’t a country created by Puritans who hanged women for knowing how to write, people are not shocked to see you in your underwear.

Not many people saw me in mine. I think a few staff members at the hotel we stayed at saw me in my pajama pants, which if you know anything about my generation is basically the new zoot suite.

Jenny did see me in my underwear. Let’s be frank, she even saw me without socks on. Sharing a hotel room meant we would see each other in a more casual state including me in my boxers.

In a shocking turn of events, Jenny took a picture of me in my underwear. I was wearing a shirt so it’s not like this was her attempt to capture some Calvin Klein-esque image. Plus, judging by the likely sweat stains I had on my underwear at the time, I wasn’t exactly in the state to get placed on a billboard anywhere.

The picture wasn’t just for Jenny’s eyes either. She was sure to share pictures with her family when she returned home. Included in the photographs was a picture of me in my underwear.

Coming from a place where people bundle up more often, I’m not used to others seeing me in my underwear let alone my future mother-in-law knowing what my knees look like. I’m a very modest person who never wears shorts in public. I think the last time I did was the 1990s.

I think my fear of wearing short pants comes from the second day of sixth grade. I didn’t have any clean pants or shorts (I had assumed at the time all clothes needed to be washed daily after one wear) so I was left with very few options. What I did have was a much shorter pair of felt-like shorts which I ended up wearing. Had I hit puberty it would have left very little to the imagination. Since I was a year or two away from beginning my development toward adulthood, it was much more akin to an innocent Christopher Robin look.

I won’t post the picture here of me in my underwear even if Jenny says it’s common in the Philippines because of the heat. To me, underwear is meant to remain a mystery. Only models and gangsters should ever show theirs off. It’s one of those strange cultural differences that make perfect sense yet I’ll never get used to.

I blame little middle school Timmy and his odd choice of an outfit one day in sixth grade for not accepting this. If I can’t handle shorts I’m not going to get caught in my underwear anytime soon.