People are weird. That's not something I've just worked out, I've thought it for a long time and it's based on interactions, observations, what I know about history, through documentaries and on m any other factors. People are weird. I'm not just levelling the accusation at everyone else though, I'm putting my hand up also; I am, after all, a person.

---

---

Recently my partner went out to catch up with a friend and I went to the gun club to shoot. Afterwards I felt like a coffee and, purely by chance, ended up at the cafe my partner and her friend were at.

They didn't see me so I left them alone and sat elsewhere, but within view of them, and read my book, a really cool non-fiction about Carlos Hathcock, USMC Scout Sniper, (the most successful sniper in the Vietnam War). Anyway, I'd look up now and then and admire my partner and how she'd laugh or tilt her head to the right and hook her hair over her ear with a casual gesture, how I knew what she was thinking by her expressions and how she managed to maintain situational awareness in the cafe while paying attention to her friend, something I taught her. She does this little frown sometimes which I find cute too and when she fully smiles it's like the sun coming up. I also noticed someone else watching her as well.

Lizard boy

There was a chap, maybe forty years old, sitting a couple tables away from my partner and her friend and he was intently studying them, and my partner specifically. I didn't pay it any mind as I know that sort of thing happens until he started doing weird stuff to get her attention; that got my attention.

I can't say exactly what weird stuff he was doing specifically, it's just what I read in his body language. He was posturing, preening and puffing up like a boy lizard might do when on a rock trying to gain the attention of a girl lizard. It was so fucken weird but I also thought it was funny because...well, he looked like a total fucken dick head.

The best bit was when his phone rang...I expected him so say something like, "go for Peter," or whatever his name was, but he disappointed me.

He talked super loud though so the girls could hear, clearly he was the most in-demand and important businessman on the planet, a real mover and shaker, and did some more posturing in the hope my partner would look over and observe him in his full and glorious state of virile manliness. She did not. This went on for the whole phone call and then it was time for him to get another coffee...instead of taking the closest route to the counter he walked the long way right by my partners table and I assume was fully flexed at the same time, biceps and butt cheeks both, stomach sucked in to reveal rippling abs! He had a sneaky look down her top on the way past too. What a tosser.

Thinking on this episode, I understand how women get creeped out by men. Some may respond to the attention of course, but I think many don't really like it. I've read that men get a sense of validation, maybe power, from openly demonstrating their manliness and interest in a woman, probably why the wolf whistle became so popular, but from what I know most women find it unsettling.

A little after the fellow received the coffee he'd ordered my partner looked up and saw me sitting across the way. She flashed her pirate smile, you know the sort of smile that makes one want to do anything, and inclined her head to invite me over. Not one to miss a chance to go over and, on the way, give lizard boy a smug as fuck look and then a death stare I went, pulled out a chair and sat down, leaning in to kiss my partner on the cheek. Lizard boy looked a little sad I guess, envious also, but fuck him...he can go find his own lizard girl.

---

Have you observed any weird behaviours like this whilst out and about in society? If so, feel free to tell me about it or just comment generally if you'd like to.