I was sitting in Starbucks writing yesterday when a man walked in and said “Hola!” to the ladies working there. He also answered his phone with a loud “Hola!” when it rang. He was not of Hispanic descent.

In case you don’t happen to by male, I will tell you that most heterosexual males go through what in retrospect is a rather embarrassing stage during our teens during which we are trying to be as attractive as possible to young ladies despite the fact that we have no idea how to go about being attractive to young ladies. In fact, we are so self-conscious that every effort we make to be more attractive is almost bound to backfire unless we happen to be the star quarterback or the shooting guard on the basketball team. I remember one particularly embarrassing moment when I surmised that cologne was activated by body heat, and so I put some in the middle of my chest and somewhere about two feet below that. Finding the burning that ensued to be rather painful, I decided the best course of action was to wash the affected area.

Most of us outgrow those (sometimes literally) painful years. I feel very sorry for those who don’t, because they don’t seem to realize that if they were just authentically themselves they would be much more attractive than Dora the Explorer ever was.