Eye Candy

—“No wonder ‘pretty girl’ seemed attracted to me,” I kept saying.
Her boyfriend thinks of her as eye-candy, but to me she’s a real person.
“Eye-candy” is my cleaning-lady’s assessment of the relationship between “pretty-girl” and her boyfriend.
“They’ll never marry,” my cleaning-lady said.
“Boyfriend,” my niece’s ex, is age-40. “Pretty-girl” is 21.
At age-21 she won’t know much.
“I don’t know what she sees in him,” my brother’s wife kept commenting.
“I hope he’s not taking advantage of her,” I said.
—A) She sat at my table.
—B) She sat right next to me.
—C) She started our conversation herself.
Usually it’s me who strikes up conversations, and usually I get a positive response. (“Oh sure!”)
Then my cleaning-lady suggested another factor which might explain “pretty girl’s” attraction to a 77-year-old geezer who hardly can stand.
“Maybe she’s looking for a father-figure; like maybe she comes from a home where her father disappeared.”
I know from experience I strike sparks with females pretty well: “you are so much fun to talk with;” “we could talk forever;” “I hope we meet again;” “you are so sweet.”(“DREAMIN‘!”)
I learned how to do it: I ascertained what works and what doesn’t.
So once “pretty girl” and I began talking with each other, she became drawn to me. (“Never in a million years!”)
This is what usually happens.
“YIPPEE; a guy is talking with me as if he takes me seriously, i.e. he wants to hear what I say.
He’s not trying to snag me as a trophy.
He doesn’t butt in or interrupt. He lets me talk; he encourages me.”
So I hope I left my mark, and it looked like I mighta, considering her ravishing smile.
My mark being that I liked her as a person, despite her loose-fitting dress, and obvious lack of a bra.
Nice to notice, but what I really enjoyed was talking with her. I was oblivious to her sex-appeal.
I think she noticed: I wasn’t lusting after her; I just enjoyed talking with her.
I’m not sure she enjoys her role as “Eye-Candy;” she’s too young.
“She didn’t need to dress like that,” I kept saying to my cleaning-lady.
“Not with the smile she had!”
So now I hafta hope she meets some guy who likes her as a person much as I did — since I probably will never see her again in my entire life.
And she was pretty; not physically in good shape, but pretty in her face.
She was a joy to talk with. And I think she noticed I liked talking with her — such things radiate.
With me she wasn’t “Eye-Candy.”
If a girl as pretty and attractive as her wants to strike up a conversation with me, I damn well better respond positively.
And thanks to that silly dog I previously had, I’m no longer scared of pretty girls. I.e. I no longer listen to the sanctimonious zealots who would tell me “No pretty girl will ever talk with you, Bobby!”

• I could picture “pretty girl” again, but promised I wouldn’t.