Sometimes, just when you need an ego boost most, there he is.

My dog and I took a leisurely walk on the bike path last night. Everything was spring-into-summer green, the temperature balmy, the breeze gentle.

We were farther from home than usual. I needed to make a return at Wal-Mart, just around the corner from a section of path we rarely traveled.

I parked the car in a lonely recycling center parking lot, just a few feet from the path and Ally and I walked down the hill. A man and a white Great Pyrenees were walking the opposite direction. The man was of average height, lean and prematurely gray. At a glance, I estimated him in his early 50s. Even though he was directly in our path, I couldn't have missed his seeing him. He wore a peachy-pink Breast Cancer 3K t-shirt over fashionably loose blue jeans.

We exchanged pleasantries, and commented on one another's dogs.

"You walk the bike path often?"

"Yes," I said.

"But not this section," he said. It was not a question, but a statement.

He was right, I told him. We typically walked a couple miles west, closer to our home.

He wished me a good night and we parted ways.

Ally and I proceeded on an unhurried walk, crossing a bridge, meandering into the forest and fighting off mosquitos. I watched her mine for rocks in the rushing stream. About an hour later, we returned to our starting point.

A sports car of some kind was parked next to my seen-better-days, badly-in-need-of-a-car-wash Saturn sedan. Not just a sports car, I could see now. A Jaguar. Our two vehicles were the only ones in the lot.

The door opened and an older man in a peachy-pink T-shirt stepped out. He perched on a boulder in front of his car and smiled at me as I approached.

"I wondered," he said, "if I could introduce myself to you."

Close up, I could see that he was an attractive man. Dimples, blue eyes, a quick smile and ... he was blushing.

"Chris Webb," he said, and shook my hand.

I gave him my first name, hesitated and then added my last.

How long, I wondered, had he been sitting there, waiting for me. And where was the dog? Had he walked her home, then driven back in the car?

I asked none of these things. But I stood a good six feet away from him, my big, black but completely fatigued and now useless protector between us.

"I wondered if I could take you to lunch or out for a drink sometime," he said.

I didn't want to hurt his feelings. In fact, I wanted to say 'yes' simply to reward him for his chutzpah. But the Jag, the dimples, the well-maintained body and blue eyes didn't touch me. Even the blush wasn't enough to tip me over into genuine interest. It wouldn't have mattered if this particular man had been in his early 30s, 40s, 50s or 60s, driving a jaguar or a dump truck. I simply wasn't interested in him.

"Well ... I ..."

"Here," he said, and pressed a business card into my hand. "I'll leave it up to you. You call me if you'd like to, and I'd be happy to take you."

"I'm very direct. But I'm not a stalker."

Immediately, I wondered: Could he be a stalker? Certainly, he'd sat in his car long enough to jot down my license plate number, even peer into the windows and see ... what? A copy of recorded books "Freakanomics," an Evercare brochure on the floor, an empty Nutrigrain wrapper in the console, my son's plastic green Martian figurine grinning at the car ceiling with its sightless plastic eyes? Nothing, really, that revealed anything about me.

I thanked him, told him I was flattered and that I admired his directness. He drove out of the parking lot, leaving me with a friendly smile and wave.

When I told two co-workers this story today, each had completely opposite reactions.

"My creep meter would have been burning red," said JoAnn, an almost 50 blonde Texan who had seen more than her share of male n'er-do-wells.

"I think it's awesome!" said my boss, Vickie, a down-to-earth, extroverted, also-near-50 brunette who had graduated from a homeless-by-choice 20-something into the top exec at our company. "A guy with a Jaguar waiting for you? How wonderful!"

JoAnn may be right. But if I believed her, the encounter left me feeling very nearly violated. Instead, I concur with Vickie. I had been paid a compliment by a nice, impressive gentleman.

Nevertheless, there are miles of bike path to explore. Most of them far from the Wal-Mart. Who knows? Maybe there's another of these guys - someone who piques my interest, touches my heart or does something so simple as make me laugh; really, that's all it takes for me - just around the next bend in life's unpredictable path.