SchrodingerIsDed
Arcanist
- Feb 17, 2025
- 420
I fear they'll make me want to stay. The area I moved to. They're everywhere. I swear, 90% of them here are gorgeous. And even the ones who are not have lovely voices that caress my soul. I cannot turn a corner without running into one or five. Beautiful women with voices like the god damn angels themselves. My ultimate kryptonite, even as I bitch about them and societal structure. I was afraid of them before, too, but in a different way: ever wary of being judged and called out as a predator. It's an ironic situation, in that sense, because--as a man who is not a predator--I shied away like the inverse: a prey animal, wary of the social judgement that could come from any illicit move, even while being dictated to be the initiator, to invade their personal space if only for a moment to gauge interest, and to risk that social judgement or rejection.
Even so. As I pass these women in the street, I see a range of expressions. I see happiness and joy--not directed at me--just in general, at life or to their friends. I walk the streets alone; and, it makes me feel more like a vampire shrouded in darkness amidst the sun, desperate to reach out and consume the joy from them, or just to be adjacent to the joy, next to their fire, to feel it just a little bit, to warm myself from this frigid sensation. I am already dead, perhaps that is why I am so cold, and their fire so alluring.
Then I see other expressions. Wariness. Concern. Fear. And I feel a subtle pang of guilt and craving to reach out and say, "It's okay. I'm not a threat to you. You're safe. Believe me." But I know that that would, laughably, serve the opposite function, causing more fear and simply break eye contact as soon as I can, and continue to walk forward. Then of course there are the majority, who stare down, or at their phones. The ones that stare down, I wonder, are they also like me? Are they trying to avoid the world, too?
And then the dangerous ones. I see the smiles. The ever-knowing smiles. 1 out of 50, maybe 1 out of 100. The unexplainable pull, a magnetic force, chemistry--whatever we like to call it--as if physics itself had destined for our opposite magnetic poles to be literally and figuratively attracted towards each other. Our eyes meet, and something magical happens. We both know. In that moment, we both know that we both have interest in the other, something beyond simple physical attraction; something I cannot place; something that seems preternatural, almost. And that knowledge we share, quietly, is expressed by an uncontrollable smile. I've noticed it in myself, as well. Sometimes the women will smile at me, and I will feel nothing. I have no compulsion to smile back, and I continue on my way, feeling a slight tinge of arrogant self-satisfaction at perceiving being desired, then gratitude for it, followed by dejection, a feeling of the loss that was never gained to be lost.
But other times, the more rare times, she smiles, and I cannot stop myself from also smiling, as if on pure instinct. What is that? I had no intention to smile. I did not want to be known. I did not want to be seen. I simply wanted to observe. But she forced it out of me. She pulled it from me. Was it her particular fire that warmed my cold bones and shattered my resistance? Why do I smile back? That does not serve my end goal. I cannot allow myself to be entranced, and yet I smiled back; and, along with that smile, I feel the inexplicable pull to enter her world; at the same time, I know that it is not for her good; I know it is selfish; I know that she is better off without this darkness, this gravitational, hypoxic singularity, consuming her fire.
I could not bear it if they interact with me in any meaningful way. Niceties are fine. Superficial interaction is fine. But I beg them, within the confines of my inner voice: Don't engage me. Don't express interest; I beg them, silently, behind a friendly smile, hiding my own imminent death.
Even so. As I pass these women in the street, I see a range of expressions. I see happiness and joy--not directed at me--just in general, at life or to their friends. I walk the streets alone; and, it makes me feel more like a vampire shrouded in darkness amidst the sun, desperate to reach out and consume the joy from them, or just to be adjacent to the joy, next to their fire, to feel it just a little bit, to warm myself from this frigid sensation. I am already dead, perhaps that is why I am so cold, and their fire so alluring.
Then I see other expressions. Wariness. Concern. Fear. And I feel a subtle pang of guilt and craving to reach out and say, "It's okay. I'm not a threat to you. You're safe. Believe me." But I know that that would, laughably, serve the opposite function, causing more fear and simply break eye contact as soon as I can, and continue to walk forward. Then of course there are the majority, who stare down, or at their phones. The ones that stare down, I wonder, are they also like me? Are they trying to avoid the world, too?
And then the dangerous ones. I see the smiles. The ever-knowing smiles. 1 out of 50, maybe 1 out of 100. The unexplainable pull, a magnetic force, chemistry--whatever we like to call it--as if physics itself had destined for our opposite magnetic poles to be literally and figuratively attracted towards each other. Our eyes meet, and something magical happens. We both know. In that moment, we both know that we both have interest in the other, something beyond simple physical attraction; something I cannot place; something that seems preternatural, almost. And that knowledge we share, quietly, is expressed by an uncontrollable smile. I've noticed it in myself, as well. Sometimes the women will smile at me, and I will feel nothing. I have no compulsion to smile back, and I continue on my way, feeling a slight tinge of arrogant self-satisfaction at perceiving being desired, then gratitude for it, followed by dejection, a feeling of the loss that was never gained to be lost.
But other times, the more rare times, she smiles, and I cannot stop myself from also smiling, as if on pure instinct. What is that? I had no intention to smile. I did not want to be known. I did not want to be seen. I simply wanted to observe. But she forced it out of me. She pulled it from me. Was it her particular fire that warmed my cold bones and shattered my resistance? Why do I smile back? That does not serve my end goal. I cannot allow myself to be entranced, and yet I smiled back; and, along with that smile, I feel the inexplicable pull to enter her world; at the same time, I know that it is not for her good; I know it is selfish; I know that she is better off without this darkness, this gravitational, hypoxic singularity, consuming her fire.
I could not bear it if they interact with me in any meaningful way. Niceties are fine. Superficial interaction is fine. But I beg them, within the confines of my inner voice: Don't engage me. Don't express interest; I beg them, silently, behind a friendly smile, hiding my own imminent death.
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