Vous voulez cette place?

- Vous voulez cette place?

- Non… - I am unable to hide my astonishment that the girl offered me her seat. All right, she looks like a sweet teenager who was taught to give place to elderly. But even though I am probably twice as old as she is, I definitely do not look old – “a man in his prime” would be a better way to describe me.

Since a teenager is no good even as a hypothetic romantic object, my look quickly wanders away from the girl and I consider various reasons for her offering me the place.

She might have offered the seat to a pregnant woman, but even with account for my early-middle-age belly, I cannot pass for a woman even for a second. 

He might have thought that I am a bum or a drunk. When I go for a walk I put my comfortable clothes, which have holes. They are not torn, but rather well-worn, and even with all the holes I know that they are clean-looking, and I definitely do not smell of alcohol or anything nasty.

The girl gets up in order to exit at the next station, and now I take a better look at her. She is about sixteen-eighteen. Not only is she pretty, but she is also well-dressed. She wears extremely long stiletto heels, but the shoes are brown rather than teenage-pink that one might have expected, and she holds her back very straight and relaxed. And in everything else she has a posture of a grown up woman rather than a teen – nothing flashy and no sparks on her cheeks. She wears cream color pants and a bit darker jacket and her hair is gathered in a discreet pony-tail.  

She is not alone, but with three or four boys of the same age – apparently all of them going out. Yet, she is clearly the leader of the group – she looks and behaves as an older person chaperoning a group of children. They are probably her friends or classmates – she hardly considers them as a boyfriend material – rather she seems like a girl who is interested in dating more mature men.

Suddenly, I realize: could it be that she made a pass on me?