The Girls of Lands' End

You young people wouldn't remember this, but before the Internet people actually looked closely at the pictures printed in magazines, newspapers and mail order catalogs. In fact, for the Complete and Total Loser, the women in such images were the only ones he ever saw, given that he's too ugly to go to beaches and has no friends, let alone girlfriends.

His favorite catalog was the one from Lands' End, the clothing company that knows more about clothes than, by its own admission, punctuation. The Loser looked at the men's items, of course, and even bought them sometimes. But the women in Lands' End catalogs were special then and remain so today for one simple reason: They smile. None of that haughty model crap for them. They're pretty, of course. A healthy weight, which puts them far below average these days, but they're not rail thin like the runway models you see in Vogue. And again: They smile. It's almost like they're real people the Loser would see in person, if he weren't a pathetic recluse, determined to die alone and unloved. 
Which he is.