Ladies and gentlemen:

We are becoming a culture of obviousness.  Gone are the days of subtlety, of subtext, of reading between the lines.

Yes, I sound like an old man, but didn’t I just preface this article with the phrase “Ladies and gentlemen”?  I’m really not hiding anything.

Admittedly, yes – I may be looking at the past with rose-coloured glasses, inferences built upon notions derived from popular entertainment.  However, I’m still willing to bet my second-born illegitimate child that our predecessors on the whole were not so blatant.

But before you jump to conclusions, I’d like to say that I, for one, am glad we are giving the guillotine to understatement.

So this week I ask you all:

Look, this is a broad subject – I should know – so I’ll hone in one on particular niche of creeper-dom: looking at people you’re attracted to.

By default, you get a pass on however you might look at people you know.  Let me specify further and focus on strangers.

I’m no psychologist, but generally speaking, I think it’s safe to say that people like feeling wanted, to be on the receiving end of gestures that indicate this.

That being said, when the people on the receiving end are strangers, there is often an unspoken etiquette as to how you show this.

Usually, the operative word is “restraint.”  Thankfully for me, lots of folks need things spelled out.

This weekend, I was hanging out with a P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing, if you’re not in the know) and twice did strangers provide me with blog-writing material.

The first occurred as we were crossing a street near Knott’s Berry Farm.

Passing by the stopped cars, I saw one of the drivers gazing half-dreamily, half-lustily at the P.Y.T. (or me, possibly – who knows?) and then doing something of a wave at her.

I’ve done my fair share of acknowledging attractive people from my car (in very normal, very effective ways) and so the act of waving isn’t what I’m knockin’.

It’s how he was doing it: he was employing something of a “pageant wave,” sort of like what they do during the Miss USA competition. You know – the wave where you have your hand up and you just twist your wrist back and worth.

It’s pretty dainty.  All I could keep thinking about was his batting average with that technique – and whether or not I had been going about my car flirting methods all wrong.

It took me all of six seconds to arrive at a decisive “No.”

The second instance was at an Asian grocery store.  I don’t know why I had to specify that it was Asian.

Scratch that – we technically weren’t at the store yet.  We were just parking when we noticed a young chap staring quite plainly at the P.Y.T. (or, again, at me – I’M HOT TOO) as we did so.

For the record, you can turn on the smolder when you admire a stranger and, depending on the amount of “game” you have, it’ll work like a charm.

Unfortunately, this guy’s face ended up looking more like this:

And he didn’t seem rich so automatic out.

The P.Y.T. immediately suggested we park somewhere else.

Long story short: don’t be interesting around me.  I’ll probably write about you.