Years ago I went with my girlfriend to a high-end lingerie shop, one which featured extremely fancy and high-priced undergarments. She was on the hunt for a fancy bustier-corset kinda thingy.

I sat down on a small couch in the elaborate and fancy lingerie store as she went into a dressing room to try on one of the fancy upper-body pieces of fine-ware. The dressing rooms were in a row at the back of the store and had curtains rather than doors.

I sat back as two young employees stood behind the cash register counter, quietly chatting with each other as a very short and well-dressed elderly woman, presumably the boss, walked around the store a la’ floor walker. (Think Captain Peacock from Are You Being Served?)

I was spacing out on a row of intricate bras that hung across from the couch when my girlfriend called out to me. “Jeff! Jeff!” I looked over. She had stuck her head out of her dressing room. “Can you come help me?”

I walked up to her dressing room. She had parted the curtains slightly. “I can’t reach these back clasps,” she said as she turned around. Sure enough, there were a few unclasped hooks on the top of the back of her very fancy and shmancy bustier.

I reached through the curtains and started to hook her clasps. It was not easy. Her bustier was designed to be tight, and I was basically bending her ribs and smushing her breasts against herself as I strained to get the clasps to reach far enough to hook.

As I was straining to bust-boost my gal, the woman in the next dressing room popped her head through the curtains. “Sir? Could you please help me with something?”

“Go help her,” said my girlfriend. As soon I was done with her back clasps I walked up to the neighboring dressing room. The woman parted the curtains partway and turned around. “I can’t reach my clasps either,” she said, pointing to the back of her complex undergarment top thingy. (Me = Not an expert on high-end lingerie.)

I helped her out with her clasps. “Let me know if I’m crushing you too much,” I said as I strained to get the clasps hooked. She took in a deep breath. “Keep going,” she said with a strained voice as she was determined to get herself anchored down into her chosen piece.

As I was clasping up that woman, the woman next to her also stuck her head out of her dressing room. “Sir? When you’re finished with her could you please help me?”

I nodded to her, letting her know I would help her out once I was done clasping the current bustier shopper. Just as I was wondering if the lingerie store could give me a commission, the short floor walker barged up to me. “Sir, you’re not allowed to do that!”

I rolled my eyes at the floor walker and pointed to the two young women lounging behind the counter, and then waved my hands at the dressing rooms. I did so without saying a word, as I was implying that maybe their shoppers would not need my help if they were doing their jobs. (Harumph! I say.)

I retreated to the small couch once more as the floor walker summoned one of the counter women to help the dressing room customers.

The point of this story is that the fancy-underwear shoppers who had sequestered themselves in small dressing rooms to try on expensive undergarments saw a man who was being attentive and considerate to his partner, who was helping her strap herself into a complex piece of fancy lingerie finery. When they saw what I was doing and how I was behaving, they jumped at the chance to ask me to help them out with their own behind-the-back-clasps struggles. They saw, through how I was acting and how I was helping out another woman, that I was someone they could trust, and they had no qualms about asking a strange man to help them into a complex undergarment rather than risk dislocating an arm trying to reach those damnable upper-back clasps.

Keep in mind these women were in a state of undress, and they were backed into dressing rooms for which there was no exit except they way they entered. And I’m not a small man. I’m six foot one and I weigh two hundred pounds. I’m the size of a middle linebacker. So you have to know that I had given these women more than enough confidence to ask me for help through my actions, actions that demonstrated that I was helpful, thoughtful, and trustworthy.

Under other circumstances they might not trust me. They might cross the street to avoid me. They might grip their keys in their coat pocket if they happened to be walking in my direction on a dark street. Even though I feel like a big goof most of the time, I can be an intimidating presence, something that I can forget.

Women do not have a strict red light and green light attitudes towards random men, it’s that when they encounter unfamiliar men they have no idea who they’re encountering. A leather and denim biker who looks like a meth dealer could be a polite and considerate gentleman, and a clean-cut man in a brand new business suit could be a slimeball and a potential assaulter. Too many women have had just too many scary, frustrating, ridiculous, and dangerous encounters with all kinds of men. That’s why they’re choosing the bear. Bears can be unpredictable for sure, but not nearly as unpredictable as their own species. If a man is going to be trusted, he has to prove it.