Well Dressed Man

On the bus to work yesterday morning, I was sitting facing the aisle. When the aisle starts to fill up with standing passengers, you tend to notice all their details. There's no window to mentally escape out of. You just stare at the wall of people, and hope no one's belly mashes you in the face after a particularly hard brake.

Yesterday, staring at the people wall, I noticed a guy. He wasn't particularly good looking, but he wasn't ugly either. He had smart glasses on, and one of those wool newspaper boy caps on. The kind Brad Pitt wears to the point of tedium. I looked at the rest of his outfit. His nicely worn satchel was the same warm tobacco color as his belt. His sweater - a thin wool with muted colored horizontal stripes - fit his trim figure perfectly, and was accented nicely by a simple clean button down underneath. His jeans were clearly a nice quality, deep blue, and straight legged. His shoes were not too pointy European, but not a bowler shoe either. In short, he was impeccibly, yet simply dressed. If a man of mine dressed like that, I'd be proud.

So, my well dressed friend got off the bus with me at Montgomery St. And then stood beside me as we waited for the light to change. I looked over at him one last time before I decided, YES, I should definitely tell him how impressed I am with his fashion choices. Wouldn't I be thrilled if someone did that for me? Stick their neck out on a Wednesday morning to spread positive sentiment? YES.

"I'm sorry, I just needed to tell you. Your outfit is SO well put together. It's just great."

"...giggle,ah,heh,giggle..."

and he walked away. He literally did not have a language driven response. On top of that, he walked away from me. I gave him a piece of cake, he gobbled it up with a big grin, and then walked away, still chewing, crumbs falling in large clusters from his mouth.

Let me be clear. I was not at all interested in this guy on the boy/girl level. But I DID think there might be the possibility of a "thank you" or a breezy conversation as we walked to our respective office buildings. There's just no accounting for people sometimes. It's ok. I hope I started his day out right.