It was like watching the Animal Channel...

I gave into the dark side.

I normally try to get out of the office for a quick, cheap, and relatively healthy lunch, but today I just didn't have the internal fortitude to eat my usual 6" turkey sub and diet coke. I found myself turning into the parking lot of a burger chain that I will not name, though you should know it from it's creepy plastic faced, crown wearing mascot.

I happened into the restaurant right at the peek of lunch. I noticed, as the line wound back to the ends of the short wooden barricades, that there was an overabundance of middle-aged males. A variety of men (scruffy blue-collar types, polo wearing desk-jockeys - all at least slightly overweight and homely) waited almost silently in line to order or pick up their food with the one exception of a 20-something brunette in jeans and a tank top.

She wasn't a particularly attractive girl but she was tall and the correct weight, and stood in stark contrast to the unattractive testosterone crowd. And testosterone is right.

As I waited, I noticed how one after the other almost every man in the room would take an extended glance up and down this poor lonely girl's body. At first it was just the graying, long-haired, mustache wearing trucker a few people ahead of her. And then it was the guy at the register who looked like Dwight from the Office. The wait was long enough that pretty much every guy in the room checked out this girl at least once.

She seemed oblivious though. Was she uncomfortable? Did she really not notice? Did these men seriously not realize that they were all doing the same thing? Why was she there alone in the first place?

I felt as if I had walked into the middle of a college Sociology experiment. And then, as I thought about it, it felt more like watching the Animal Channel and a special about what happens when you introduce a female chimp into an all male environment.

I seriously have to wonder if no other man there took an objective view of the situation and decided not to act like every other chimp in the room. It's as if they hadn't seen a semi-attractive woman in weeks.

It is our place as Gentlemen to treat a Lady with respect. Maybe I missed the boat, but what good did it do any of these guys to eye her like she was some sort of object? None took the chance to talk to her, they just gawked and formed rude and selfish mental images in their minds.

It's just a little reminder, but the next time you're out try to take notice of your natural reactions to the women around you. Do you look like one of these chimps? Do you just blend into the crowd of other stupid, desperate, lonely men who'd probably be better off walking on their knuckles, or do you stand up straight with dignity and treat women with respect - even when it comes to the unspoken ways in which we interact?

-J. Eliot

women are people too...