Here she comes

—Here we go again readers! Another turgidly boring blog celebrating what to me is another fabulous female encounter…
Yet to the average person it’s just another normal contact between persons of the opposite sex.
“I have a tiny story if you wanna hear it,” I said to my lifeguard friend at Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming pool.
That lifeguard friend is impressive, a “looker” for age 65.
I always feel like I overreached, that I’m unworthy.
She was flitting about performing lifeguard duties, mainly sanitizing per COVID-19.
I interrupted her once or twice, but she gave me the “wait” signal.
Flitting finished, here she came!
“WOW!” I’d think to myself. “A ‘looker’ wants to talk with me!”
Actually I take it in stride. I’m not so surprised any more.
My confidence increased with so many fabulous female encounters.
No matter! I can't help but like it. She’s happily smiling and eager to hear my story. (“Impossible!”)
She walks right up beside me, then waits to hear my story, looking right at me, still smiling.
You’ve heard this before, readers: “No ‘looker’ will wanna hear your story, Bobby! You are EVIL and disgusting!”
That night I happened to eat-out with two fellow bereavers. Both are widows: one lost her husband ten years ago, the other eight years ago. My wife died nine years ago.
Both of these friends are critics, and have given up reading my multitudinous “girlie” blogs.
I sit quietly and let my friends chat. I occasionally say something, or they say something to me.
These eat-outs are pleasant, but I don’t say much.
Comments were made regarding the fact I celebrate my girl-encounters too much.
“Those blogs aren’t sex bragging!” I said.
“I celebrate that I can interact with women at all.”
When interacting with women occurs, which is often any more, I notice and usually end up blogging it.
So my lifeguard friend wants to hear my story. This is entirely contrary to my upbringing.
Free at last from the albatross that held me back over 70 years — terrified and unable to interact with women.
“You’re taking this too seriously” translates to “you think too much!”
“Get over it!” they all shout.
“It ain’t easy,” I say; “to reverse ‘marked-for-life’ over 70 years.”
Over 77 years I met thousands, but only two seem to understand my hoary childhood.
One is my aunt, 90 years old, who probably had it worse than me. Her mother, my grandmother, always told my aunt she was a mistake — never shoulda been born.
The other is my cousin, my father’s brother’s only child. ‘I don’t know how my father ended up being as decent as he was after the childhood he had.’
I can't just slam-dunk reverse ‘marked-for-life’,” I say.
Then “you need help!” one critic said.
“That would be my bereavement-counselor,” I said. “She’s my bereavement-counselor, but all we ever talk about is my dreadful childhood.
Her advice is not that I bow and scrape to my all-knowing critics.
Her advice is that I keep making friends (talking) with ladies, that by so doing I prove my badmouthers WRONG.
So here came my “looker” lifeguard friend, a girl (GASP!), and she wants to interact with me.
Sorry dudes; I really like it! It counteracts “No ‘looker’ will ever associate with you!”
The fact she’s impressive isn’t as mind-blowing as the fact she wants to associate with me.