Beholden Beauty and the Fallen

There are a handful of people in my life I've really fallen for yet have not taken that place in my life. It is hard to describe how much those people have meant to me or all the things I felt glimmer then disappear as possibility hastened its retreating escape.

The reasons it hasn't worked out vary, some didn't feel the same and some moved on while I remained silent. Some are with someone else while others even despite better intentions before my eyes caused pain.

But it's made me think about the roots of attraction, to question my own hypocrisies and try to value what those few really meant.

I'd like to think I always see beyond the exterior and that there aren't preferences when I am interested but I am red blooded and I notice.

I register the pretty girl walking into the room. I like so many many others. We change the way we talk, seem a little more forgiving and interested, perhaps are flirtatious and maybe even sit just that little closer.

The duality for me is I'm an average guy and certainly no saint but I do that - yet - all the while what I'm really hoping is the opposite number in my parade doesn't and looks beyond the surface. That is my own shortcoming to challenge, flaw to treat.

But that isn't the entirety. That initial attraction to arrive isn't the reason that compels you stay.

I don't know whether looks make it easier to feel things or if because of them one is easier blinded faced with them and convinces oneself of more, but I know how the reality of being fallen for someone felt.

I could tell you silly little details and then be constantly reminded of them. The tiniest of things that were only hers by far the most attractive. In arbitrary situations she would pop in my head.

So then my hypocrisy is rife but tempered. And those few times when without created distraction I am willingly ensnared.. I think of those few times realising there was a truth of feelings for me then, a reality of care.

And then; it is then that I cherish and then I regret.