By Barbara Falconer Newhall

There he was. In the flesh. Tall and slender and muscled and oh-so-handsome. Sigh. It was Superman. The Man of Steel of my girlhood fantasies. My dream man.

He was standing on the curb of Hollywood Boulevard, waiting for the light to change.

Right next to him was Jon, my actual man. The mere mortal that I married 37 years ago.

The light changed. Superman, my dream man, stepped into the street.

I followed.

Jon, my actual man, muttered into my ear, “If he’s really Superman why was he waiting for the light? Why didn’t he just fly?”

But I was too busy stalking Superman to listen. Superman has long legs.

I took pictures. Click. Click. Got some good shots of the red cape flowing in the Southern California breeze.

Just then Superman stopped in the crosswalk to chat with friends. I charged ahead to the curb. Got a good shot of him coming toward me.

He saw me taking pictures, so Jon and I offered him two bucks, which is what you do when you

take pictures of people parading the Hollywood Walk of Fame looking like Darth Vader or Bat Woman or Superman.

The Man of Steel took the two bucks and posed manfully for a photo with me.

“What are those muscles made of?” Jon wanted to know.

“Kryptonite,” said Superman.

And with that the two men, my dream man and my actual man, headed off down Hollywood Boulevard together.

I took pictures.

“He’s a nice guy,” Jon told me later.

Yesterday — just five days after our encounter with the Man of Steel —  Jon called me into the den to see something on TV. There was my Superman, red cape, red boots and manly muscles, watching as a bad guy smashed the windows of an LAPD cop car. Did he intervene?

“It’s not my job to jump in the middle,” he told a CBS-TV reporter.

A Superman who can’t fly? Has fake kryptonite muscles? Doesn’t dare to interrupt a crime in progress?

I’m sticking with my actual man.

For more stories about love and marriage, go to “Man-Bashing at Our House,”  “The Day She Popped the Question” and “Would My Husband Like to Add My Name to His?”