Wing it!

—“I was hoping you’d be here today,” I said to my lifeguard friend at Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming pool.
“I'm always here on Wednesday mornings,” she said.
Maybe! 10-12 consecutive Wednesday mornings so far.
It didn’t seem to be that way until now. Prior to COVID-19, when my aquacise class was two days per week instead of one, I saw her only occasionally.
I like meeting her. We can talk, or so it seems.
“I have only one tiny thing to tell you,” I said.
That’s a conversation I practiced many times myself — and having something to say to her contradicted my entire point.”
…….Which was to allow a lady to talk to me as much as, or more than, I talk to her.
One of my lady friends mentioned she disliked talking with men because they try to take over a conversation.
I butted in on my lifeguard friend a few weeks ago.
For me to come to that pool with something to say doesn’t allow us to talk freely, the pleasure that comes from mindless chatter.
The babble that tells her you just wanna hear her pretty voice, plus you wanna talk to her.
To me, showing up with something to say — an agenda — is a flub.
Just talking freely to each other — mindless chatter — has rendered many pleasant conversations.
I had other practiced speeches in mind for other of my pretty lady friends.
Thankfully none occurred.
Only one successful contact today, out of four female contacts. And that wasn’t a practiced speech.
Hopefully my lifeguard contact didn’t bomb.
Next time: “nothing to say this time, except happy to see ya!”
“Forget the speech practice,” my critics would exclaim. “Your trouble is you think too much!”
This time I humbly agree with my critics.