By 
Published in the May 2014 issue of Esquire
PLUS: The PTA Watcher of Men // And Inside Our Bedroom Fantasies
"I'm reading my book, I'm reading my book," I chant in my head as the BART train rumbles toward San Francisco. But the truth is, all I'm doing—all I can do—is check out the chino-clad package inches from my face.
I steal a glance upward to check out the man attached to this conspicuous body part. He looks like he's chewing on a worry, his jaw muscles clenching and releasing. "Oh, so serious," I think, part concerned mom, part belittling dominatrix. "Someone must have some very important work to do today." As if on cue, he looks at his watch. It's fancy, to be sure, but I'm distracted by his hand as it falls to his side. Long, slender fingers and a thumb that juts out at nearly a 90-degree angle—the digital equivalent of a strong jawline.
This is how I spend a fair amount of my commute, in a boy-watching reverie. Just as I'm dangerously close to losing myself in the dark hairs trailing up Serious Man's wrist, in walks a young guy with laughably large headphones, sagging pants, and loosely tied sneakers that make a thunk-thunk. He grabs the railing above his head, exposing a pair of sheer white cotton boxers. There is something so vulnerable and unstudied about them—an intimacy shared. Next to him is a short, slightly pudgy twentysomething. He's not exactly Ryan Gosling, but I can practically see the testosterone sweating from his pores. Without needing to smell him, I know his signature scent: whiskey and cigarettes. Crushed in his hands is a weathered paperback that he's folded in half, breaking the spine. It makes me think of that Internet meme of interspecies cuddling—a mouse nuzzling a cat, a gorilla, a kitten. Someone save that book, I think. Honestly, he's the one who needs saving, and that is more attractive than I care to admit.
There is so much to admire here. The tech worker in a hoodie, tapping at his iPhone with precise, fast-moving fingers. Hmm…. The hipster with his ill-conceived tattoos. (Impulsiveness can be sexy.) The gym rat whose meaty pectorals form mountains under his T-shirt. (How many times my weight can he lift?) A man doesn't have to be conventionally hot to catch my eye. All it takes is a marker of maleness: the flex of a forearm, a hint of stubble, chest hair poking above a collar.
I sometimes think men would be relieved to know how often women check them out. Or maybe they'd just be scared.
