Random People Watching in LA: 09/18/2006 11:15 AM

I'm here in the Cyber Cafe on Topanga, and seated a table or two away is a woman, in her late-thirties to mid-forties judging from snippets of her cellphone conversation I am hearing, who looks better than most teenagers you would encounter in Morgantown.

And people wonder why I love LA?

Grown ups who are still attractive. One good reason. In a lot of your marginal subcultures you see a phenomenon with badly dressed and badly groomed young men dating young women who actually seem to be paying attention to their appearances.

Guys with a basketball jersey and baggy shorts, walking into a bar with a young woman dressed and groomed to just this side of prom night. Sooner or later, I think the young women give up on their looks, because the guys never make an effort, and join the slob farm. Why make an effort if the guy doesn't? Then the guys get ticked because their sextoy is now a size eighteen who doesn't wash her hair as she chain-smokes her way through another tough afternoon watching Judge Judy.

Here, in LA, there is a more competitive attitude. People care about the image they present. Men dress, not to avoid being accused of metrosexual tendencies, but to look good, to impress women, to impress themselves. To feel good about themselves.

The women respond, and make the effort to continue to look nice.

Like the woman sitting not ten paces from me, in her midriff top and stylish slacks (not hiphuggers, those are generally reserved for the trailer-park wannabes who learn how to dress by watching hip hop videos).

I'd bet good money her husband (or ex-husband) wears a suit. Combs his hair. And showers.

Just thinking out loud.

I got a phone call this morning (I'm carrying, but it is roaming) from a young lovely I work with, to see how I was doing. Maybe I should seek her out when I return tomorrow.