The curse of the short hair (a view inside my head)

I love having short hair. Unlike popular belief, bedhead is still an issue. Perhaps even more so than if it was longer because inevitably I resemble Alfalfa when I wake up. But there is another hurdle besides extreme bedhead.

Recently at the gym, I saw a woman that I hadn't seen there in awhile. I don't know her name but if you go there regularly, inevitably there are others that are usually there at the same time. She had lost a lot of weight since the last time I saw her and looked really good. While working out and listening to my iPod, sometimes my mind wanders as another way of passing the time. On this day, I got into an internal discussion on what is the proper way of going up to a complete stranger and telling her that she looks good and using that phrase exactly like most females do when they notice someone shrinking. I then realized that as someone with really short hair, this could become misconstrued. Would she think I was hitting on her? Judging from her looks, I couldn't be assured that she played for the same team as I do. It is for reasons like this that I forgo wearing flannel shirts and try not to show off my knowledge of 1980-early 1990's baseball, basketball or football knowledge that I gained from living in a household that was three-fifths men. By wearing a flannel shirt and dropping the name "Kent Hrbek", would that be a red flag to others that I don't appreciate the male form? Should I even care? The answer to those is yes, it probably would be a red flag and yes, I do care.

So as I am on the stationary bike, having this discussion with myself, time flies and she leaves and I never tell her that she looks good.

Today I run into her in the locker room as we both prepare to leave and have an odd encounter. She sees that I have a bag with the letter 'M' on it and asks if I ordered that through Lands End since they can monogram anything that isn't tied down. I said no, that I had actually found it at Meijer (a local grocery/stereo equipment/car battery kind of store) and liked it because it had the 'M' on it. After a few seconds of silence, she then asks what my name is. I tell her and more silence follows. No offering of her name (yes, I could've asked but deep down, I don't really care) so I fill in the silence by saying that the 'M' could actually stand for Meijer more than it being made for the millions of people with M names and then silence ensues until she's bundled up and as she leaves, we exchange the usual "stay warm", "see you later", etc.

The lines of communication were opened but it definitely didn't feel like the right time to say that she looked really good.