All to myself

—“How do I tell you this without being perceived a ‘lonely hot-to-trot widower;’ a ‘loathsome lothario’?”
I said that to my aquacise-instructor at Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming-pool.
I still think highly of her; she leads my aquatic balance-training class.
She was the first pretty lady to smile at me in my entire life — my wife is another story.
I took her smiling at me ALL WRONG; a product of my early childhood.
“No pretty lady will smile at you, Bobby! You are EVIL and disgusting!”
Then “just because a lady smiles at you, doesn’t mean she’s interested in you.”
(That last quote is another lady friend.)
That aquacise-instructor, married like most of my lady friends, finally gave me her borders.
Most of my other lady friends gave me their borders early. “I like you liking me; it makes me feel attractive; but be careful!”
For years I never knew what was going on with my aquacise-instructor. Incidents occurred, misread per my childhood, that egged me on.
My childhood leads me into misreading any contact I have with women — the misperception being the lady is interested in me.
I got past that, but well after that aquacise-instructor first smiled at me.
Unfortunately she was an early female contact, which makes her my first mistake. (Thank you Hilda!)
Which regrettably means I learn all this at that aquacise-instructor’s expense.
So how do I say anything to her without being misperceived?
Fortunately, she still seems to want me to like her. She’s not leaving me behind.
And this was especially fortunate considering what I wanted to tell her was I really enjoyed having her all to myself the other day.
Previous to the pandemic we were averaging 20-25 for the aquatic balance-training class.
Now we’re down to 3-5, and only one class per week instead of two.
And last week no one showed up except me, which meant I could have that aquacise-instructor all to myself.
“Hooray-hooray! At long last you get to see up close and personal what I been fighting the past couple years. Neuropathy which just gets worse and worse and worse and worse.”
What I didn’t say was how much I enjoyed going face-to-face with a cutie I still like. (Taste and decorum readers; I didn’t wanna get misperceived, i.e. I didn’t wanna lose her.)
Probably half of what I said didn’t even get comprehended, but it looked like I didn’t lose her.
When I left later she waved frantically at me from a distance.
Under my previous way of thinking, that would indicate her being interested in me.
Not any more! What a shame I had to get here at her expense.
Never again am I gonna think some lady is interested in me.

• Hilda Walton (“Hilda”) was my hyper-religious Sunday-School Superintendent neighbor when I was a child. She convinced me all males, including me at age-5, were SCUM. My Bible-thumping parents heartily agreed, since I was already rebellious for not being able to worship my holier-than-thou father.