Additional pleasant female encounters

—“While you were in Floridy with your husband,” I’d say to my pretty lifeguard friend at Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming-pool……
“I became friends with two of your pretty young cohorts who like you also lifeguard this pool.
One’s name is *****, the other is ******; and I think both may be new.
I did it pursuant to your admonition striking up a conversation with a girl wasn’t FLIRTING. (GASP!) I agree, although my wife wouldn’t. Sometime I’ll explain that.
Experience tells me striking up a conversation with a girl never bombs. I haven’t been smacked yet, and neither lifeguard stalked away.”
Conversation was the usual mindless chatter. It wasn’t Kierkegaard.
No matter! I'm talking with a girl, and she wants me to continue.
By striking up a conversation I indicated to that girl she attracted me. Plus I didn’t have evil intent; I wasn’t hitting on her, or trying to snag her as a trophy-girl.
She seemed like someone I’d enjoy talking to. —Equal terms too.
I don’t play that “women-are-inferior” card. That girl might say something I wanna hear.
I kept thinking ***** might be ******.
“We look alike,” ***** said.
“But there are discernible differences,” I said to *****. “****** has blue eyes I think. Your eyes are brown.”
“Yes, ******’s eyes are blue, but mine are actually hazel, depending on the light,” ***** said.
That meant I looked at *****’s eyes, and liked what I saw. In other words I admired what women prefer, not their sexual attributes.
“You have the eyes,” I say to some pretty stranger.
“You are cute,” or “you are so sweet,” the girl coos as she caresses my arm.
Men friends tell me I have it all wrong. Sexual attributes are what matter, but not to this kid.
“All I need is one of your smiles, Sunshine of your eyes, oh, me, oh, my…..” —A line from “Scotch and Soda,” sung by The Kingston Trio in 1958.
Then there was Mrs. ******, my aquacise-instructor.
She recently had big surgery, and when I first saw her last week she looked like she’d been hit by a truck.
“I hope we can talk sometime before you leave,” I said to her — an opening-line I found always works.
Now she wants to talk with me; I set her up. I asked her permission.
“What’s he gonna say to me? What’s on his mind?”
Finally “you have one minute,” she says to me, which like usual became five minutes.
“I just wanna know your surgery wasn’t cancer-related. Seeing you the other day was seeing my wife all over again.”
“No cancer,” she smiled, as I started to leave. (She also looked better.)
She didn’t just zip away, or head to the door by herself. She stayed with me, which unfortunately I misinterpret as romantic. (Not any more.)
She’s just being sociable, but in the world in which I grew up, any contact between the sexes was EVIL and salacious.
To fill space: “I decided face-to-face communicatin’ is a lot better than the written word. If I text you, I don’t get your immediate reaction which, excuse me, I love getting.
There’s a pretty good chance you’ll say something I wanna hear.
With text, I get a delayed reaction, which may be to something you misinterpreted.”
“Yeah,” she said. “With face-to-face if I misinterpret something you can correct it right away.
If I think you’re mad at me, you flip that.”
“I feel like I been hiding behind the written word all my life. I know I do it pretty good, but it’s always one-sided!”
“Anyway,” I thought to myself: “what I really like is just talking with you. It’s risky, but worth the risk.”
Mayhap Yr Fthfl Srvnt finally said something she really liked hearing. Maybe after years and years of foolishness and folderol we’re actually talking to each other.
Dreadful childhood reversed I hope?
We’ll see what happens next week, except it’s a different lady-friend every day of the week.
(And as always: “No pretty lady will ever be interested in you!
Go to Hell, Bobby! Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Go DIRECTLY to Hell!”)