The Girls at Work

All right, they're not girls; they're women. But still. To the Complete and Total Loser, they seem like girls, in a good way. Unjaded. Open.
One yesterday mentioned having been born in 1990. The Loser had to think -- wasn't that just a couple of years ago? No? Oh. She's 23. More than old enough to be out and working. But 1990! That's when the Loser, in his 30s, first started feeling old. The year she was born the Loser was too old for women as old as she is now.
He doesn't really look at these girls in an inappropriate way. He looks away when they bend down to do something and reveal cleavage. He ignores the odd butt bump as they squeeze by in tight spaces. He listens to their words and tries not to notice the bright eyes and glossy hair.
Signals are there, though. The primitive ones men use to excuse being oracular horndogs: I'm fertile and healthy now; impregnate me. The signs at their age are billboard size.
But the Loser knows no woman any age is waving him home.

Last fall the Loser stopped on his way to work and watched a marathon. There were hundreds of women running by. The keywords in that last sentence are these: women ... running ... by.