Not smacked yet

—“You have pretty eyes,” or “boy am I glad I said something to you!”
After which the pretty girl says “I’m glad you said something too!”
ME? The lifelong scum-bag?
“I almost said something to you in the store, but you got away. Now here we are out in this parking lot, and your eyes are gorgeous.”
“Why thank you!” the lady gushed, and I didn’t get smacked.
I bet she goes home and tells her husband some geezer told her she had gorgeous eyes. And perish-the-thought, I bet she liked that.
Why am I getting away with this? I’ve yet to get slapped.
“If some guy told me I had pretty eyes, I’d get out my mace,” a lady-friend told me.
Only one failure so far among numerous successes. And with her I was lying.
I admit I hesitate; I also unload a torrent of preliminary babble hoping it will make my complement sincere.
I go to a nearby restaurant to get takeout, and a pretty girl brings it out.
“I hafta say something. I’m 76 years old, and you’re a pretty girl.” BLUSH! “Life is not fair,” I’d add.
I passed a lady outside my supermarket, she glanced at me, so I wheeled around and said hello to her: face-to-face, full eye-contact.
She smiled and smiled and smiled and smiled at me.
“You’re smiling at me!” I said. “Always,” she cooed, as she smiled even harder, lighting up the entire parking-lot.
Her eyes twinkled. Why do I get away with this?
I was hiking a nearby rail-trail, and a fortyish lady bicyclist was resting on a rock, maybe 400 yards away.
Would I get to where she was before she left? But I think she was waiting to see if I’d talk to her.
I made it, we began talking, and she smiled and smiled and smiled at me.
She wasn’t that pretty, but I can still see that smile, and her sparkling eyes.
Why do I get away with this?
Yrs Trly is a graduate of the Hilda Q. Walton School of Gender Relations, whereby “No pretty lady will ever associate with you!”
So befriending pretty ladies, at which I seem to be mind-blowing successful, counters Faire Hilda.
Why do I not get maced when I tell a lady she attracts me?
I don’t tell her point-blank, plus I try to cushion my saying so: I’m not saying “how ‘bout it honey?”
I think perhaps the fact I did prior defense makes it possible to tell a girl she attracts me.
Plus what got my attention was her smile or eyes, not sex-appeal.
Plus I’m partial to classy ladies; no Harley-mamas. Drink, smoke, gamble, drugs: never in a million years!
What I really wanna do is talk-talk-talk-talk-talk. If that happens the lady usually smiles at me.
“No pretty lady will ever smile at you!” So I’m always after that smile. I can still visualize that bicyclist smiling at me; that supermarket lady too.
Innocence mayhap? They perceive I’d be no good hittin’-on-‘em.
Then they smile at me: BAM! I am done; and they can see it.
“Yer hittin’ me with them eyes again;” cutest girl in the store — I’m probably old enough to be her grandfather.
And she LOVES it: she’s not telling me to “buzz off creep!”