The Untapped Power of a Smile

It’s been a while since I logged into a dating site, it’s been even longer since I’ve been on a proper date. I’ve been introduced to a few people over dinner here and there, but I’m talking about proper butterflies in your stomach anticipation nervous date here, and it’s been a while since I had a date like that.

Somewhere down the road and I can’t even put my thumb on it, I just simply stopped dating. The furthest I went was admiring someone from afar. And even him (or her sometimes) barely got a smile from me. Something strange happened several weeks ago, I was on my way to Denmark Hill and a young chap was seated to the left of me. I could see from the corner of my eye, every so often he was looking at me. At the risk of sounding up my own bum hole it happens quite often, I catch the eye of someone and they simply can’t stop from looking :P I’m usually fairly unbothered by it, it’s happened since I was in my teens and sooner or later you just become immune to it. This was initially no different. Except right at the end, when we got to the station, he locked eyes with me and gave me a smile. Not a forced smile, a really nice genuinely warm smile. Strange I didn’t recognise or acknowledge what this guy even looked like, right until that moment. But he caught me off guard, and I responded with a forced smile, little more than acknowledging his smile. It wasn’t until he walked past me that it even registered that the guy was good looking and probably the kind of guy I might have asked out. And I let him walk past without any mutual acknowledgement or even so much as a hello.

That got me thinking about the vibe I must be giving off at the moment. A cold hard unbothered persona. And despite the knowledge that I’ve been emotionally cut off from guys and dating, it wasn’t until that moment that I realised the degree it’s still prevalent.

Strange what a single smile from a random stranger can invoke within you.