At what age does a single fellow start looking at the ring fingers of what he thinks are hopeful single ladies?

Recently, two days ago to be exact, I was separating my cycling clothing from my regular clothing. I was standing in front of a dryer inside a laundromat in Vancouver, Canada. I was there competing in the Burnaby Six Day track event in hopes that it preps me well for the upcoming LA World Cup, another story altogether.

Anywho, in walks the very attractive red head. She’s slightly shorter than I am, athletically fit, dressed fashionably well, wearing glasses, hair in a pony tail, and a “I’m confident” kind of walk. Keep in mind that I’m assessing this while looking at this fox’s reflection in the dryer glass right in front of me.

It’s at this point that I realize what I’m doing and I have been rather disturbed by this realization. You see, I’m attempting to see if she has a ring on her finger, but I’m doing so in a rather weird fashion. The glass has bevelled edges where it attaches to the door and it was throwing my accurate view off. One, I’m doing this awkward bobbing up and down to try and correct for this abberation. The dude next to me must have witnessed this, because out of the corner of my eye he was giving me an awkward look and shaking his head. That doesn’t bother me. What bothers me is that I realized at the ripe age of 25 how I have the need now to assume all girl are engaged until proven otherwise by checking the finger.

This saddens me. It used to be so easy, you just didn’t have to worry about such things.

I suppose it’s also sad that I used the mirrored reflection in the dryer door to see her. Sometimes I guess I just become too bloody shy.