The Complete and Total Loser is on the train home after going into the city on a weekday off to run some errands. (Having a monthly pass is great; you can do things like that.)
Considering that it's off hours, the train is remarkably full. A blur on his left, and the Loser notices that someone has sat next to him. He can see peripherally that his seatmate is a girl. A pretty girl. He sucks his gut in an inch (he's in weight loss mode -- no progress yet) and straightens. Normal things for a man his age who wouldn't have had a chance with a girl like this at any age. But here's where the Loser is different. He has to fight the impulse to check the mid-crevasses of his ear for dandruff. He resists, but barely, and it reminds him of how late in life he realized how bad that kind of thing looks.
Once, while walking to his apartment, he saw a neighbor he found attractive heading on a collision course. Guess what the Loser did. He moved his left hand directly to his crotch. Why? Is he a deranged pervert of some kind? No. (Well ...) He was checking his fly to see if it was zipped. Good move, no?
The Loser is just that clueless about other people that he somehow thinks such gestures, gestures he notices instantly when others do them, are somehow invisible to others when he does.
The Loser is in his mid-fifties, single, and hasn't had sex since 1997.
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