Hold your head up

Is there anything sadder than a beautiful young woman who carries herself like a bag of cat food?

I met someone off Craig's List for dinner. She and I had been emailing for about a week, and talked today on the phone. We decided to meet at a place in Annandale I've liked in the past, and when we met, I was really, really dazzled by this woman's looks. Great proportions, well-styled long, ash-blonde hair, and she had dolled herself up nicely -- red sweater that showed her collarbones, and a long, straight wool skirt that revealed gorgeous legs as we went to our table.

But she sat all hunched over, fidgeting uncomfortably, as if she was in high school detention or something. Kept playing with her hair and looking down at the floor. I did everything I could to make her comfortable, but eventually realized that I just couldn't do anything more in that regard. So, I just listened to her and admired her. Dinner was nice, but distant. I'm not guessing I'll see her again, but just because she was so attractive, I wouldn't mind.

What I heard from her as she talked helped explain the way she carried herself. She'd been married for ten or eleven years, had been a stay-at-home mother and had gained a great deal of weight, which she had only recently lost. Women who are uncomfortable being overweight tend to hold themselves in ways as if to hide their bodies, and here she was now, some years later, with a terrific body emerging from the past, and I was giving her attention she just didn't seem to have the experience to adjust to... she wasn't really used to being checked out. Give her another six months, to where she's used to looking great, and she will be a completely different woman, but for now, she isn't quite sure what to do with herself.

That's just my guess. I've seen it before. In some ways, I watched it happen with Penny just in the time I was with her, because she had lost quite a bit of weight after her divorce, and she made a transition from being a nice but unimpressive married woman to being genuinely hot. She handled it pretty well. This woman tonight could take some lessons from her.

In any case, it was nice just to be in the company of a truly attractive woman and have a nice evening with no big expectations. I never did get to see Louisa on Friday, and she's off out of state until Monday, so I expect that I won't see her until well into next week.

The Volkswagen is magnificent on snow and ice, by the way.