That's just gross.

Folks, you know me. At least most of you do. I'd be fascinated if people reading this didn't at least have a general concept of who I am. Anyhow... you all know that I am far from "easily offended" and I sure as hell am far from a prude. Now, with that in mind, I will say this: I find it very off-putting when dirty old men make remarks about younger women, be they on the street or just celebrities. I take even more of an issue when the comments are made to either a) me or b) a casual acquaintance.

"So Bill," you ask, "what brings this on?" I'm glad you asked. So I am, as I tend to be, sitting at the coffee shop. I am, as I tend to be, reading a book with my headphones on. Unfortunately, I am sitting on the couches again. I am sitting next to an asian female who is probably about my age, who is poking away on her laptop. Another gent, who is kind of a blowhard from all that I have observed in our encounters at the coffee shop, comes in and sits by her. I can pretty much ignore much of their small talk, until she shows the older gent a video on her laptop. It's some Asian (Chinese, I believe) girlpop trio, and she is literally beside herself at how attracted she is to one of the members. She immediately asks him if he is as attracted to the girl as she is. I find this odd, as there has to be at LEAST a twenty year gap in their ages. They continue this discussion of attractive female celebs for no less than ten minutes. They are each on their laptops, frantically seeking out pictures of attractive women, all of whom seem to be in the twenty-something age range.

As I said, I have no issue sharing my thoughts on the finer points of the female sex. I will droll over ladies as much as most of the next guys. What I will not do is sit about with a casual acquaintance and obsess over female celebrities in a room somewhat full of people. Yes, I may blog about all the hot female musicians, but if anyone doesn't really give a damn, they can navigate away from my page. Plus, I will add that, generally speaking, society would not consider it "gross" for me to state my attraction to many of those fine female musicians, as we are within a moderate age range of each other. Even still, I also have the tact to refrain from making lewd comments about the finer points of said ladies.

I guess what I'm getting at in a very roundabout way, especially when added to my fat guy experience the other night is that people need to remember the importance of tact. Yes, in our society where everyone can hide behind a computer screen and live their lives via broadband connections, there are still human connections that occur on a daily basis whether you plan them to or not. I realize that much of the time I am ridiculously self-conscious, but I am beginning to fear that I need to be that way in order to balance out the handfuls of people I run into on a day-to-day basis who just have no clue. But maybe that's just me.