“I’ll never be one of those girls,” I once thought while slipping my hands in my back jean pockets. Yoga pants are for sleeping, not to be worn past the mail box, I felt.  Only lazy people wear them to class. I didn’t even do yoga, for goodness sake.

I was wrong in those denim clad moments. Really, really wrong.

It’s not something I wanted to do, the first time I wore yoga pants. It was out of necessity. I had run out of clean jeans (and out of only slightly dirty jeans, too) but it was time for class. A shortsightedness that broke me of my not-even-once philosophy.   My roommate threw a pair of her stretchy American Eagle yoga pants across the room and I was out the door with three minutes to spare.

It was about half way down Chancellor’s Walk when I realized that I it all wrong. Possibly about everything I’d ever known. Yoga pants were heavenly.

I knew I shouldn’t like them. I knew they didn’t count as real pants and that I was slowly becoming a part of a generation that felt undergarments were acceptable outer garments and that Justin Beiber was a viable source of entertainment. Next thing I knew, I’d be updating twitter about my split ends and celebrating Kim Kardashian’s divorce.

Okay, well, not really. But I was shocked at how comfortable the pants really were.

I went immediately after class to buy myself a pair. (Wal Mart- $ 9.98)

I convinced myself the whole way home that what I had done was okay, similar my thought process after eating cake instead of working out.

What makes one fabric inherently better than the other, I had to ask myself. Both are opaque, form fitting pieces of clothing. Why did something comfy feel sinful? That’s the way the world is working now, putting utilitarian purposes over tradition and style and even class.

It wasn’t like I had bought crocs or anything. They were just another pair of pants that happened to take less time to put on. Besides, boys love yoga pants.

Who was I to argue with a win-win situation?

I consulted The Seahawk fashion reporter, Tabitha Shiflett, to console me.  

“If worn with tennis shoes, they’re okay- so it looks like you’re about to go workout. Or around your house,” Shiflett said.

Still, there was a time when women wore corsets under everything. When nothing was allowed to jiggle and the idea of being in public with wet hair was abhorrent. There was a beauty in that idea, a quite pride in keeping face and being presentable publicaly.

I kept the new yoga pants in the back of my closet.

For three days.

All inner conflict aside, they are just unbelievably nice to wear. Besides, I don’t live in the fifties. I’m a young, independent woman earning a degree. Sometimes I only have a second to get to class.

“Everyone is doing it,” said a friend of mine wishing to remain anonymous. “Stop worrying so much.”

I have since come up with two conditions for myself to handle the guilt. First, if I have time for makeup, I have time for jeans. Second, if I am certain that I will not go to the gym that day, I have to wear jeans. (The second is more for motivation than for logic.)

As of the current day, I now own four pairs of yoga pants and have for the most part conquered any residing guilt. If I am going to be tacky, at least I will be trendy, modern, and extremely comfortable while doing it.