Revisiting an Old Story
Before starting out on this, it's worth pointing out that the people I'm about to write about bear no resemblance to the people in the photo accompanying this post at allother than they are a man, and a woman. I just thought I would get that out of the way before somebody asks me “how did you get that photo?“I got the photo by searching on Google Images. When I receive a take-down notice, I'll remove it.
Right. Now we can begin.
A long time agoback in the spring (I think), I wrote about a lady I often passed while cycling to work that would be out walking her dog. She was often wrapped up like an eskimo, probably cursing her dog under her breath before racing home to the house across the way from the office, and jumping in her car to return to work.
Over time I began to shout hello as I passed, and we ended up (in my mind) almost looking forward to the smiled greeting each day. It had nothing to do with her being gorgeous either, honestalthough when spring turned to summer, oh my word. Repeat after meI'm not that shallowI'm not that shallow.
We saw each other most mornings, and most eveningswith never anything more than a wave, a smile, and a shouted “morning!”.
Then something interesting happened. One of the family that owns the entire estatea guy perhaps five or ten years older than hermoved into the house next door to her, and became friends. Really good friends. The kind of good friends when you can see he's trying waytoo hard. For reasons known only to him, he would find himself outside on a morning at precisely the point she might return from her dog walk. He would be outside, picking up the milk, or polishing his Porsche, which had been parked strategically. He would even take mail round for her, and invite himself into deliver it.
While noticing this unfolding friendshipif that's what it wasI couldn't help feeling guilty that I had even noticedand tried to stop watching.
And then it all stopped.
During the late summer I was away a lot with work, so have no idea what happened, but suddenly he's not making excuses to bump into her, and she's going about her business on her own once again. All manner of comedy scenes are of course forming in my headall of which are almost certainly wrong, but they keep appearing.
Did he try it on, and get a slap? Was he actually gay? Wasshe gay? Or did he just give up trying? Has somebody else moved in that's an easier target?Of course I'm being entirely unfair. I've invented this entire “unrequited love story” in my head over the last year, based purely on a few interactions between two strangers that I very seldom see, let alone ever interact with.
But wouldn't it be funny if she had slapped him