...the issues from my brother's can't-be-ex-soon-enough-wife's subscription because she'd used our address. She never retrieved them, despite at least one renewal during that time, so eventually I started to peruse the odd issue when they caught my eye.

Yeah, the ads and the crap articles. I did enjoy looking at some of the outfits and ensembles they'd showcase, though, with full awareness that I'd never have, be fit to, nor be so silly as to want 99.9999% of it, but it did help in starting to get a better idea of fashion trends, and how to interpret the attempts of women around me (and on telly) to invoke them, and by extension ways of creating additional social evaluation filters of a sort. I don't get my worldview from such, but knowing that some do at some degree of remove allows me at least a little insight into how women evaluate themselves in relation to others. Such is not a comprehensive filter by any means (Language comes significantly closer, for example), but has the virtue of being useable at a physical distance and, with good memory and visual acuity, in just a glance.

And it's nicer to think of than, f'rex, pursuit preparatory stances or the degree to which they are actively scanning their surrounds for threats, or even whether they are potential threats themselves. Yes, I've anxiety issues, and an engaging distraction can help when I'm forced into public spaces.