I see it as a guy who's not in love with the woman but in love with the idea of love itself, so much so that he projects it onto any attractive stranger that he sees through his alcoholic haze, constructing a drunken reverie which dissipates as she leaves. He doesn't love the woman...he hasn't even talked to her, but the idea of the love that he can't find, because he doesn't even have the courage to ask for a cigarette, makes him wallow in his self-pity.
I see it as a guy who's not in love with the woman but in love with the idea of love itself, so much so that he projects it onto any attractive stranger that he sees through his alcoholic haze, constructing a drunken reverie which dissipates as she leaves. He doesn't love the woman...he hasn't even talked to her, but the idea of the love that he can't find, because he doesn't even have the courage to ask for a cigarette, makes him wallow in his self-pity.