Gotta get up my nerve

—This morning (Sunday, November 15th) Yr Fthfl Srvnt found himself thinking about *****, my lifeguard friend at Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming-pool.
***** and I are worlds apart. She’s married — as far as I know — and not the mess I am.
But I always feel like she was the first pretty lady to drag me away from my sordid childhood: convinced at an early age no attractive female would have anything to do with me.
She may not actually be first, but one day she said hello to me by name outta the clear blue sky. She was probably just being sociable, but I never had anything like that happen over 65+ years.
And she wasn't just saying “good morning” as my assigned contact. She was saying hello for no reason other than to say hello.
***** isn’t gorgeous, but she is stately and statuesque. Attractive for her age, which was 63 when we first met. (On her lifeguard stand she looks like she’s in her 40s.)
And in fact, our first contact was that first time she said hello to me.
I was confused. Her saying hello to me was contrary to what I expected = “NO PRETTY LADY WILL EVER SAY HELLO TO YOU!”
I was so confused it was in-one-ear-and-out-the-other. I set about doing an hour of balance-training in that swimming-pool.
Class finished, I climbed out of that pool, thinking I gotta get my nerve up.
Instead of just walking away to the locker room, and perhaps because I earlier had contact with a real cutie-pie in a physical-therapy following my knee-replacement……
I turned the other way towards *****’s lifeguard stand.
“Did you say hello to me?” I asked her.
“Yes I did,” she said.
“Well,” I said; “sorry I’m late, but hello back.”
She smiled, and *****’s not an easy smiler.
We exchanged a few words, maybe 30 seconds, then “see ya later alligator,” as I walked away, recovery from my sordid childhood begun.
And amazingly she stayed with me, despite the many flubs and foul-ups I made trying to get used to engaging women.
Even despite an incredible faux pas which I thought would end our relationship forever.
The next day, here comes *****! Smiling like “happy to see ya!”
“Well,” I thought to myself; “if you can forget yesterday, I guess I can too.”
We talk, and laugh, and since ***** I’ve gotten much better talking with other ladies, some of whom are smashingly beautiful.
I never told ***** much regarding my sordid childhood, but once I said to her “No pretty lady will talk to you, and you did.”
WHAM! She blushed. I had just backhandedly told her I thought her pretty.
She didn’t take offense, or smack me. What she did was smile at me = she really liked my saying that.
I hope her husband tells her that once in a while. I know how marriage can utterly destroy flirting like that. You take attractiveness for granted.
Many pretty girls have come-and-gone since *****; girls I woulda avoided 10 years ago.
But I always feel like ***** mighta been my first tenuous step away from a dreadful childhood.