system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why does a small wet stain on a shirt dry in minutes but a wet shirt takes hours?
gpt
Because a wet shirt has *much* more water soaked into it than a little spill.

On top of that, the air itself can only contain so much water vapor, so if the air isn't particularly hot or dry, the shirt might saturate the water in the air all by itself, requiring waiting for the wetter air to disperse before more water can evaporate.

Finally, if the water is soaked into the shirt, less water surface area is exposed to the air, so it will take longer to dry as a result. This is especially true if you are trying to wear the shirt, since the heavy water will pull the shirt down against your skin, meaning even less surface area for the water to evaporate from. This makes a pretty big difference in and of itself and can easily be tested by just taking two pieces of cloth and getting both wet with the same volume of water. Get one wet by just pouring the water in one spot so that it forms one big wet spot, and get the other wet by sprinkling the water around a bit instead. You'll notice that even though the same amount of water was used, the sprinkled one will dry faster.