...

Lou didn't know exactly why she had agreed to the date. She sensed it was primarily to have a conversation with someone new. She was curious in a mostly-disinterested kind of way. She liked the exercise of observing another life, briefly, over coffee. It didn't really matter which life. Was she being misleading, then, by calling it a date? Maybe. But she found that people thought it was wierder to meet with a stranger just to chat than to go on a 'date' that went nowhere. So after every hour-or-so of encounter, she said semi-apologetically but very certainly that she didn't see it going any further but it had been lovely, really lovely.

People found her intriguing. Her distance complemented her masculinity in a flattering way. She came across as mature, confident, and keeping deep secrets for good reasons because she had seen so much and lived so much and loved so much (it was incredibly hot). This wasn't entirely inaccurate. She felt pleased. She looked pensively out of the window with her hand under her well-defined chin at the blurred cars passing. She felt very old. She felt lonely.