I can’t resist!

—“Last week I told ***** a lot has happened since she said hello to me three years ago.”
*****, of course, is my pretty lifeguard friend at Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming-pool.
I will say that to Mrs. ******, my cute aquatic balance-training coach at that same swimming-pool. She and I walked our dogs together about the same time.
That dog walk, and ***** saying hello, could be considered the beginning of recovery from my sordid childhood.
Both events counter “No pretty girl will pay any attention to you. You are disgusting!”
I told ***** “I no longer am the person I was back then.”
“Mostly it was my dog,” I said, my silly Killian, one of the dogs Mrs. ****** and I walked. Killian, an Irish-Setter, was the most people-friendly dog I ever owned. He wasn’t scared of pretty girls, so I shouldn’t be either.
He’d drag me toward a pretty girl, wanting to be petted.
“Oh what a pretty dog! Can I pet him?”
Here I am, yet again, talking to another pretty girl.
I’d been scared of girls over 70+ years.
“No pretty girl will have anything to do with you!” is the infamous Hilda Q. Walton, my hyper-religious Sunday-School superintendent neighbor when I was a little boy.
My Bible-thumping parents heartily agreed since I couldn’t worship my holier-than-thou father.
Marked-for-life = deathly afraid of pretty girls, so unable to relate.
44&1/2 years married to one, but I kept to myself.
Before ***** was *****, my super-cute physical-therapist after my knee-change. Scared at first, but I got so I could talk to her.
If not for *****, I probably woulda never responded to ***** saying hello.
Many pretty ladies have come and gone since. And thanks to Killian I got so I could to talk to ‘em.
I began using Killian as chick-bait. Now that he’s gone I can talk to pretty girls myself.
My most recent triumph is striking up conversations — like with pretty ladies. I keep doing it because I never get smacked, even when I tell a girl she has pretty eyes.
Doing so seems to make us both feel extremely good.
The mere act of striking up a conversation tells that girl I was attracted to her enough to do that.
I ran into a pretty young jogger once on a nearby rail-trail, I struck up a conversation, and she was thrilled.
All I wanted was to shoot the breeze, talk with her as equals.
I was perceived as not trying to score a trophy.
Girls like that; especially the pretty ones. They always hafta be wary.
I also told ***** striking up a conversation seemed rare. That being the case, it seems like girls like it more that I was attracted enough to strike up a conversation.
“He likes me; and he’s not hittin’ on me.”
Responses have been so positive, I strike up conversations like crazy.
“I never can get outta this supermarket without striking up a conversation with some pretty lady.”
“DO IT! DO IT! DO IT! DO IT!” Even though stuff piles up.
The lady talks and talks and talks to me, and she smiles and her eyes twinkle.
The smile and eyes are what count!
I can’t resist!

• “All I need is one of your smiles; Sunshine of your eyes, oh, me, oh, my…..” “Scotch and Soda,” 1958, The Kingston Trio.
• “Killian,” a “rescue Irish-Setter,” was my most recent dog. He made age-11, and was my seventh Irish-Setter, an extremely lively dog. A “rescue Irish-Setter” is usually an Irish-Setter rescued from a bad home; e.g. abusive or a puppy-mill. Or perhaps its owner died. (Killian was a divorce victim.) By getting a rescue-dog I avoid puppydom, but the dog is often messed up. —Killian was fine. He was my fifth rescue. (Yet another dog lost to canine cancer.)