Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Up Close and Personal

Sometimes, you find yourself bearing witness to one of those cliche-because-they're-true momentous life events. (Someone else's life...as will become obvious although shades are reminiscent of certain past transgressions of mine).

On the subway on the way home from work, I'm sitting on one of the benches people watching and listening to my ipod as usual. Standing in front of me are a well-dressed man in his early 50s and a woman in what I guess is her mid-twenties (I'm terrible at guessing those around my own age). They appear to work together and are chatting comfortably. The subway, quietly shuffling along in its post-rush hour half-empty calmness, allows me to overhear their conversation. Yes, I paused my ipod. Not because I'm generally nosy or care what people say on the subway, but because something about them catches my attention - are they standing just a bit closer together than necessary? Is he touching her hand?

Over a period of 15 minutes, it became very clear that these two are about to commence and affair. He wore a ring. She did not. "What about work?" "I can't do this to myself." "But what about what happened Friday night?"

What happened Friday night?!

She left the train car without him, but not before a moment-too-long kiss on the cheek.

I blatantly stared at the man for the next few minutes until I exited the train. I was simply incredulous.

And yet I'm sure he thought I was flirting with him.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wonder how often such situations lead to the woman receiving a ring (for the important finger).

Douglas said...

thinking fool...that was a foolish comment. NEVER...that's how often.

So Harmless are you hatin' the playa and the game?

Harmless Error said...

I bet the woman ends up with a ring about 1% of the time.

I don't hate the playa. I do kind of hate the game, but I guess I have to play it.

Because guys are dumb.