Circular Road to Nowhere

There’s a woman who works at a little store in my town who I have always found pretty attractive. In her case, beyond the physical stuff, I like her because she is attractive without considering herself ‘sophisticated’ in any way.

I’ll put it more bluntly. She is a small town girl who likely grew up poor and lived in a trailer most of her life.

For the purposes of this entry, we’ll call her T.

T flirts a lot. She’s nice to most people she meets, but I can tell that when I’m around she moves into flirt mode. I used to be completely unable to decipher when a woman was actively flirting. Now, for whatever reason, probably experience, I can spot it from far away. She is not particularly reserved about it, she makes it fairly obvious. I like how she flirts and sometimes flirt back, cautiously.

I go to her store every Friday, partly to say hello, partly because the little store happens to make the best pizza that can be had in this little town.

I like the fact that she seems to be a pretty good mom (in a day to day sort of way). I know she is a mom at all because I see her around town with her kids fairly often (she has 4, two girls, two boys) and one of her girls works at the same store. We’ll call her G. G is a teenager, I think she is seventeen or eighteen.

I like a lot of things about T. The other day, she said something that I was surprised to find that I liked. In the past, I probably would have been mildly turned off. I walked into the store like usual and immediately saw she had a bandaid on her forehead. I asked about it, of course. She said she had been hiking, got hit in the head by a tree branch or bush or something and then had some kind of allergic reaction which made it unsightly.

“And since I’m vain…” she said. And she said it in such a way that did not make it sound like a casual joke. She meant it.

For some reason I can’t entirely explain, I found that endearing. Both the fact that she had an allergic reaction to being hit by a branch and the fact that she admitted to being vain. I realized, I might need to study why my reaction to that was what it was. It wasn’t just the fact that she admitted it…I liked the fact that she was vain.

I grew up believing that vanity in all forms was a negative quality. And maybe it is. I’m pretty sure it is, actually. Maybe what she meant was merely, “I care about my appearance” which most people do. That’s decidedly not a bad quality. There’s an obvious difference.

I think that what I liked was the fact that she was willing to admit to a flaw.

Her vanity is likely a red flag, though. It is probably an indicator for bunch of other problems, I’m pretty sure of that. But, it isn’t just loneliness that makes me want to overlook it and even accept it. I just…really liked that she was willing to admit it. Maybe it’s a typical thing for a man to overlook, I don’t deny that.

I also liked the fact that she was the sort of person who had allergic reactions after getting whacked in the face by a branch. I found it cute.

T has more than a few red flags. Moreover, she has at least one deal breaker in the form of a…fiancee…boyfriend…I don’t know what you’d call him. I have not met this dude formally, but I see him around town often. I seldom if ever see him with her.

So, early on in this whole exchange of flirtations, I noticed she wore a ring. A small gold thing with a green gemstone, on the finger that means ‘I’m taken.’ And I just came out and asked about it.

Her story: ‘It’s an engagement ring and has been on my finger for three years…because I’m dumb and am still with a guy I know will never marry me.’

So, right there, I actively decided that it wouldn’t go beyond some passing flirts when I’m buying pizza. Not that I was presuming that she would want it to, but when a woman says something like she said on that occasion, I have to think it means ‘I might be willing to cheat.’ And I’m not willing to be in that kind of a relationship.

Since then, I really only see her when I’m at the store on Fridays and when I do, I’m friendly and sometimes even a little playful…but that’s it.

I mean, I get it. She is in her late thirties. She has four children. There is no way she could raise them on her own with that little job at the town store. I don’t even think she’s full time there. Which must mean that she is depending on the guy who will never marry her in some way. So, it’s not like she’ll ever break it off with this man just to see where it might go between her and me…and in the meantime try to figure out how to make it on her own an everything.

No, the only way we’d end up seeing each other seriously is by cheating, then she makes a jump from one household to another. And that…is not going to happen.

And…without getting into too much disclosure, I haven’t always been so morally upright. In fact, I don’t even feel like I am now. It’s really more that the whole prospect of an illicit relationship where I attempt to steal someone else’s woman – regardless of how badly their relationship might be going – sounds utterly exhausting.

Could be I learned a thing or two the hard way. And the moral implications are not something I ever want to wrestle with again.

But, now something different has begun to happen when I go in there. And it’s making me think I might have to stop.

Today, and the last few times I’ve gone in for pizza, T’s daughter G has been acting strange around me. I first figured out she was T’s daughter by accident and she seemed much more normal and calm than she does now.

I do not attribute this to G being attracted to me. That isn’t it.

But, I do think she knows her mom flirts with me…and part of me thinks she is encouraging it. She is very talkative…she hovers. She was at the register today when I went in and she made a point of asking me, “Do you want me to go get my mom?”

I worry that this suggests some kind of damage that I may be contributing to.

It could be that she wants her mom to bust out of the relationship with this other guy. For all I know, they’ve talked about it at length.

It could also be that she has watched her mom move from man to man and knows the signs.

It could be all of that at the same time.

It’s frustrating, though. The blunt end of it is that it simply won’t work, regardless how attractive I might find T to be. Any attempt to force it would only end in complete implosion. Even if ‘guy who won’t marry me’ weren’t in the picture, I get the sense that T’s is a story with a lot of damage. Part of me thinks, ‘well, we’re all damaged.’ But, I think that’s just loneliness talking. If the guy weren’t there, I might give it a shot. But since he is…and that ain’t likely to change anytime soon…it’s all a big circular road to nowhere.

There another woman at the bank, I think is beautiful. Absolutely gorgeous. She is P.

I make a point of saying this about her. I see lots of physically attractive people go by every day, everyone does. All kinds of people pass through your life, but only a few of them make an immediate impact. And what I mean when I say P is beautiful is that she has some extra quality that makes me very curious about her life. Who she is. Once you get to know a person, that kind of thing can easily be dispelled. I know this. Who knows what the spark is? Men tend to notice physical traits and she certainly has those. But, it is more than that, something intangible. A mannerism, a demeanor, a flip of the hair, a half smile, a tone of voice….something. Usually a tiny something.

What I like about P is how soft spoken she seems. She frequently looks…troubled. And not in a ‘I’m a victim of physical violence’ kind of way. It’s more of a ‘life didn’t turn out the way I expected’ kind of way. I relate to that keenly, even though with P, for all I know, it may not even really be there. You see what you want to see sometimes.

P tries hard, it’s obvious. She does this out of a sense of responsibility, obligation. Obligations are too often considered bad things these days, but I mean it in a good way. Last time I was in the bank, she seemed harried and stressed. In the midst of the transaction we were conducting, she got flustered and said, “wow, it’s been a really long day.” And apologized.

To me…and this is just me…it suggests that she is often or has often tried to be a people-pleaser. I want to tell her…’it’s fine. I don’t need that kind of attention…you can be you around me…you’re beautiful like you are, so just let go of the need to make people happy all the time at the expense of your own contentment.’

I should say that next time I’m there, just to see how she reacts.

I’d get kicked out of the bank.

My point is…I found my self wanting to make her day. Make her smile. And I barely know the woman. She just seems like the kind of person I’d like to do that for, that’s all. She seems like she could use someone around to let her know that she deserves to be taken care of, too.

That day at the bank, I made a point of looking. No ring.

Women who read this: wear the ring.

Because when I saw that, I wanted to try to ask her out. So, I checked with a friend at work and nope. She’s married.

The person who told me that P is married also said the same thing that I inferred. Apparently, P’s facebook page is a litany of vague lament. So again…perhaps not happily, but she is attached. Learning this was a moderate to major bummer. I don’t know much about the husband. Just that he is possibly a significant number of years older than her and works in construction.

She seems lonely. Like me.

It’s like my intuition is screaming at her to make a move, give me a look, show me a sign. Almost like when I see her, I’m looking into her prison cell.

Nothing can be done. Things must play out and I am not the arbiter. I refuse to go digging where I don’t belong anymore.

I wonder sometimes if people notice me noticing things about them. I know I can be pretty oblivious with a lot of people…people I’m not interested in, romantically or otherwise. When I am interested, I wonder if it shows. My hunch is that I conceal it pretty well. I study people, trying to infer what their behavior indicates about them.

I tell myself the world is full of people and half of them are women and many of them are interesting people. I get lost in other stuff. When I get lonely, I want to go to the cemetery. I want my late wife to….fucking manifest. Sometimes, the only reason I want her to is because I’m alone. This is instinct, this happens, it does no good to cover it up to yourself. It doesn’t mean you don’t still honor her.