“You think too much”

—Yrs Trly continually thinks about that fiftyish lady smiling at me when I said hello to her.
That was a few days ago. She was attractive for her age, and she glanced at me as I passed, so I whipped around and said hello to her.
WOW! She smiled so hard she lit up the entire parking-lot.
Obviously she was thrilled: a guy (me) had noticed her, indicating she was still attractive. She probably thought she was older than me, but I’m probably older than her.
Whatever, we were really striking sparks. She was so happy she smiled and smiled and smiled and smiled.
That’s all it takes, readers. Some lady smiles at me and I am done!
Too bad I’m so out of it = clueless and innocent dealing with ladies. I’ve gotten so I can strike sparks, but follow-up is beyond the pale.
“I’m not used to this,” I said as I scurried away — or should I say “ran” away?
Not the first time! I’ve gotten so I can tell a girl she has pretty eyes. But when I do, I walk away almost immediately. “See ya later, alligator!” I have no idea what to do next.
So, “I’m not used to this” as I ran away, an honest assessment of my complete inexperience dealing with women.
There have been encounters were we followed up, often quite long. But her reaction left me speechless.
Plus there was a second lady there. I couldn’t just face-to-face alone with this smiler.
I try to imagine shooting the breeze with her. It’s happened, often successfully, despite never knowing what to talk about.
I think about a contact I had a while ago with a lady who wasn’t that pretty. We talked and talked and talked and talked at least 20 minutes — the one who had to cut us off was ME.
“We can’t talk forever. It sure would be fun, but I have things to do.”
I mentioned I once drove city-bus, which triggered my contact saying she rode city-bus out to Mercy High-School.
“I drove that,” I say. “I mighta had you as a passenger.”
She smiled: “this guy is really interesting!”
“Yada-yada-yada-yada-yada,” and women love talking.
“Tell me more, keep going!” —In other words “tell me about yourself; go-ahead! I’m interested!
And I won’t bore you with bragging about myself, since there’s nothing to brag about.
We’ll just trigger each other; it’s called shooting-the-breeze.”
But I wonder if that would work with my smiler-friend.
She’s probably so experienced my innocence would quickly crash: like all I could do was make her feel good by acknowledging her.
“This guy is nothing,” versus “this guy is really interesting. He noticed me, but this guy is nothing.”
If the other lady hadn’t been there: “Mind if I sit down? I don’t know you from the Moon, but you keep smiling at me. Can we talk?”
“You think too much,” my critics say.