Such a dapper gent sat next to me on the bus. Have you ever noticed that when Richard Gere stars in a movie, that nearly his entire wardrobe, plus the set — cars, couches, cats — are all done in gray? If you don’t believe me, put something like Intersection or Nights in Rodanthe on your Netflix queue. Anyway, that’s how this guy looked. Silvery gray hair, wide-wale charcoal corduroy pants, a light gray cashmere sweater, a houndstooth gray and white scarf cinched around his patrician neck under a gray wool jacket. Brown shoes.

I looked at him, I looked at me. At his shoes, at mine. I leaned over and said, “Imagine how perfect your outfit would be if only you had on these shoes.” i thought he would be grateful. I was about to let him in on where I had purchased them, and the happy accident that they were on sale, but the look he gave me — which conveyed his opinion of my lunacy — dissuaded me.

I was in the right, no doubt about it, and would have helped make his near-perfect outfit GQ-ready. But some people just don’t know a good deed when they see one.

Prepare to be ignored, even when you’re doing your best work.

THE SHOE: Gray flannel high-top Keds