To tell or not to tell

"Your zipper, sir"

I am standing on a train and I have noticed a business man sitting down in the vestibule area with his fly undone. What do I do? If I tell him he will undoubtedly question me (whether silently or verbally) - 'what are you doing looking at my crutch?'. A fair question which I'm not immediately sure how to answer. "um, I was just looking at all the men’s crutches and noticed yours was trying to perform an escape act", "I love the colour blue and noticed that is the colour of your underwear and wanted to let you know!" or "Ants Pants are ok but Bonds are better" and pretend to work for the Bonds marketing team. Even I am not convinced any of those replies sound believable. 

Now if it was a woman, I could discreetly let her know her fly is down and she would be grateful that I'd helped her out in what could otherwise be an awkward conversation at a business meeting or with work colleagues. I could smile knowing - I am a good Samaritan. A helpful human to my fellow female citizen. We tell women when they have toilet paper on their shoe, when they are being a 'tag dag', and when anything else generally frowned upon is sticking out from under an outfit. But everything is different when it comes to men and I now cannot help but continue to look at the awkward situation that presents itself.

If I don't say a word I feel guilty. I know he is walking around and at any minute more than he intended, and I can currently see, might present itself to others who will then also be caught up in my dilemma. If I do tell him he knows - I looked at his crutch. I could look at him and then pretend to check my fly in hope he gets the hint, by doing this he knows I am giving him a hint and I may as well have told him discreetly. This doesn't seem like a great option. I could just try and catch the eye of another onlooker who might have more guts than me, who might see what I am alluding to and they may tell him. But then I have involved another person, which could make this situation more embarrassing than it needs to be for this poor chap. Again, this option doesn't seem sound. 

Maybe he knows it is down and wants to see how many women tell him! A way of picking up women maybe. Hopefully not, it is 8am and I cannot imagine anyone can be bothered with pick-up lines or small talk before a large latte. 

I remember my friends in London coming home on an overland train and they saw a man with more than he should have hung out. They giggled like schoolgirls and told me all about it. They did not wake him and told him wearing no underwear with football shorts is not a good idea when you fall asleep on a train. They didn't feel any guilt. Surely that is much worse than my current situation.

All this thinking about options and he has just stood up to leave the train, I have a few seconds to decide how and whether I tell him. Now or never, do the right thing, or keep your new found knowledge to myself. I've let it go on too long. I've known about it for 5 stops, tell him now he will wonder why I didn't tell him 4 stops ago? 

I let it go, confident someone else will tell him and sure he is a self-assured person who will not lose any self-esteem or sleep later when he is told by someone with more courage than me. I then spend the next 3 stops telling myself - next time just tell him.

Lesson learnt - don't forget to always carry sunglasses with you, or if glasses are forgotten, close your eyes when on public transport until it is my stop.