A hypothetical question

(or, On Seeing Your 100% Perfect Girl on the Train One Cloudy, Sweltering July Evening)

First, allow me to set the scene. The question will follow.

One nondescript Wednesday evening, after a less-than-stellar day at the office, you board a train departing Tokyo's Shinjuku Station for the western suburbs at around 8:25 p.m. After taking a moment to gather your bearings, you look around.

By some chance, standing directly beside you to your left is one of the most deeply beautiful women you can recall ever laying eyes upon. Not "beautiful" in the movie star or supermodel sense, though no doubt she would be deemed attractive by any objective standard. More so than that, though, is the way in which everything about her--her eyes, her facial expressions, her dress, her mannerisms, the way she sways her body when the train makes a sudden movement--seems to be screaming out to your own deeply personal aesthetic ideals of feminine beauty.

Of course, you have encountered girls in your life who have struck you as deeply beautiful in a not-entirely-dissimilar way, as well as those who have had an even greater impact on you due to an added emotional attraction (needless to say, you know nothing about this girl, and at best could attempt only a vague--and likely inaccurate--estimation of her personality based upon the aforementioned facial expressions and mannerisms). Nevertheless, you cannot remember the beauty of a single individual having such an impact on you, so suddenly and unexpectedly and yet so profoundly.

The question (doubtless self-evident at this point) is, what do you do?

I am fairly certain--positive, even--that the "correct" answer (if there is such a thing) is NOT "look up from the book you are reading to catch only the occasional furtive glance, while marvelling at her beauty and half-tossing around the idea of possibly getting off at the same station as her, just to see where she goes, that she might possibly go into a coffee shop or someplace that you could enter as well, which might offer even the remotest chance of possibly, maybe leading to a potential conversation, or perhaps she would go to a fitness club, or a yoga class, which would be even better because you could then seek it out another time, making it appear to be a coincidence, yes, that might work, that might be the ticket, but then again she'll probably just go straight home, though even then, if you even knew the general area she lives, that you might give yourself a chance to run into her again, but no no no NO now you're sounding ridiculous, like a stalker, even though you never thought of actually following her in THAT way, just that you wish, you want to believe that it would be possible to just give yourself the opportunity, that's all you ask for is the OPPORTUNITY to maybe, possibly, form a connection, to have a chance to see if such a connection could be formed with this beautiful person, I mean is that so much to ask? But what are you thinking she probably has a boyfriend anyway--that's who she's texting on her cellphone, I bet--I mean, any girl as beautiful as girl is bound to already be "taken," and even if not what are the chances she'd be interested in YOU? Zero, that's what, or close enough to it, I mean how presumptuous can you get, I mean who the hell are you to think there would be a place for you in the life of someone like her, and besides, you're already idealizing her too much, building her up to be something she's not, I mean sure she's beautiful but that doesn't mean she's the type of person you could share any sort of connection with, I mean, wake up already, real life doesn't work that way, you don't meet random beautiful women on the train and then actually get the chance to get to know them and connect with them in some way, much less, god forbid, start a relationship--my god, even thinking about it is so STUPID, don't you have ANY shame?--that would be too perfect, too ideal, too ridiculous to ever happen in reality so just forget it, forget her, FORGET HER, you saw a beautiful girl, that's it, now stop daydreaming, get off the train--this is your stop coming up, if you didn't notice--and go back to your ordinary life, your REAL life, that's right, so then you end up doing just that, getting off the train, leaving her heading off to a destination unknown, then walking out of the station, stopping at the supermarket to pick up some bananas, then going home and writing a rambling (and perhaps somewhat frightening? Not frightening, though, right? I mean it's normal to have these feelings, at least to some extent, right?) blog entry because it's the best way you can think of to clear your mind."

Again, I am convinced that the above is not the "proper" course of action. And yet, needless to say, it's more or less exactly what I did.

Not feeling too great about it, though.