She melted

—“Don’t go yet!” I keep saying to myself. “I wanna say goodbye to you.”
I said that to *****, a new lifeguard at Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming-pool.
I was leaving, and she, shift finished, was turning into the women’s locker room.
She melted, and turned back toward me.
“DREAMIN’” my critics would scream. “She was faking it.”
If indeed she was faking it, she’s really good at it.
I had this sorta thing happen before.
I told a girl she was very pretty, and she blushed.
“I’m 76 years old (this was last fall — now I’m 77) and you’re a pretty girl.”
I was amazed I did that.
Maybe a year and a half ago I met a stunningly beautiful “looker,” probably in her early 30s, at a party. We talked some; she wondered why I was sitting alone.
As I left the party I tapped her on the shoulder and told her I really enjoyed meeting her.
I did that? I cried driving home.
Me, a graduate of the Hilda Q. Walton School of Gender Relations, terrified and unworthy of pretty girls?
“No pretty lady will ever say anything to you, Bobby! You are EVIL and disgusting!”
Now I have lady friends galore, and many of them are smashingly pretty.
It seems I attract ‘em, probably because I encourage ‘em to talk, also because I don’t seem crazy with lust.
There is astonishingly pretty ****** of Thompson Hospital’s “temperature-ladies.” She always says hello to me when I walk in. (“Goodie! That Hughes guy. He always makes me laugh and feel attractive.”)
And *****, the lady who runs my pharmacy. “We could talk forever,” she tells me, smiling.
“Yeah, we probably could,” I think to myself later.
***** is a talker, much to my pleasant surprise. She didn’t seem the type.
Then there is my older lifeguard friend at that same swimming-pool.
We been friends for years, and she’s impressive for age 65. She looks late 40s on her lifeguard stand.
Her lifeguarding is a retirement gig.
And I goofed up every one of these ladies at least once. Twice for my older lifeguard friend.
Yet that lifeguard keeps hanging with me.
After my first flub I thought I lost her forever, but she seemed happy to see me on return.
My second flub wasn’t as serious as my first, although I also thought I lost her with that flub.
I tried “happy to see ya” on her myself. And amazingly that worked.
I guess normal people don’t hold grudges like my father did.
***** was another “happy to see ya,” after I came on too strong with her once.
I also came on too strong with ****** at Thompson at first, and thought I lost her too.
I kept my distance a couple weeks, then “Hey, where ya goin’? You can’t go anywhere. Who’m I supposed to talk to?”
“Don't worry,” she smiled. “I’ll be back!”
Suddenly “all is forgiven if we can talk and laugh!”
This is not the world I grew up in, where I was guilty even if proven innocent. —Overly-judgmental Bible-beaters, eager to declare me rebellious because I couldn’t worship them.
So now maybe I have a new friend at that YMCA swimming-pool: *****, who I apparently hit really well.
“A guy who likes me as a person instead of a sex object.”
She’s fairly cute and attractive, a girl who would attract the lust-crazed little boys hot to score her.
They probably say things hoping to attract her.
But apparently “Don’t go yet! I still wanna say goodbye to you” really hit the mark.
Think about this readers: (“hand me that remote, Luke”) I coulda just walked out of that YMCA totally avoiding *****, etc.
Instead “I wanna talk to ***** one more time.”
No wonder she melted; she deduced I cared about her, and not just to procreate the species.
Admitted, the fact she’s a girl, and I’m a guy, indicates a small amount of perversity on my part.
But by being friends with *****, hopefully saying the right things, we counter “No pretty girl will have anything to do you!”
And together. I like it! (GASP!)
70 years late Yr Fthfl Srvnt learns this.

• “Talking” defined: “I like that you wanna talk to me” (the girl), and “I like your talking to me = I wanna hear your pretty voice” (me: the guy). Pointless yammering about nothing; but enjoying our shared company.
• Tell her point-blank. Don’t hold back or be evasive. Tell her DIRECTLY! I’ve yet to get smacked; and the lady will probably like your having told her.
• The “temperature-ladies” are in the lobby of Thompson Hospital’s Physical-Therapy department per COVID-19. Pretty ****** takes your temperature with one of them infrared temperature guns.