AN ORDINARY MAN
I met an ordinary man. I spent a lot of ordinary time with him. We had lots of stupid conversations that probably wouldn’t look significant written down individually. We had running jokes only we would understand. And somewhere along the way, all those tiny things accumulated until I looked at him and went:
Oh.
I like this person.
I genuinely enjoy talking to him.
I don’t think he ever tried to make himself impressive. He wasn’t advertising himself as some mighty man, listing all the reasons he should be admired. He seemed to have already decided who he wanted to be long before I met him. I only got glimpses of that man.
Occasionally.
And maybe that quietness is what made me notice.
Because he actually has enough material to talk about himself for hours.
His work.
His competence.
The places he’s been.
The things he’s seen.
The life he’s lived.
All the stories he could tell.
And yet, he never seems particularly interested in proving anything.
He just exists.
And somehow, I started noticing.
The way he remembers things I say. The way he notices little things about me. The way he makes small things easier without making them into gestures.
And then, to make matters worse
The warmth in his voice. The way he looks into my eyes. The way our conversations somehow refuse to end. The little world of jokes we built without ever deciding to build one.
And then, as if all of that wasn’t enough, there was the matter of his eyes.
Once, at lunch, being the gentleman he is, he gave me the comfortable seat and took the one where the sunlight fell across him. And that was when I noticed them.
Warm brown, with actual flecks of gold around his irises.
The kind of eyes I had only ever read about in books, in descriptions I always assumed were exaggerated for effect. I never imagined I would actually sit across from someone and see them. And the absurd part is that I might never have noticed if he hadn’t been thoughtful enough to give me that seat. Which feels almost cruel now. Because once you notice something beautiful about someone, you can’t quite go back to not knowing it’s there.
And then there are the details I probably shouldn’t have noticed at all.
Like the way he bites his lip absentmindedly, leaving those little horizontal lines across lips that are almost offensively pink.
Yes, I realize how I sound.
I am, in fact, a respectable young lady. And yet I have apparently spent enough time looking at this man’s face to develop opinions about his lips.
Then there is his stupid little forehead. With those suspiciously pleasing papules that, for reasons I cannot defend, my eyes seem to find particularly charming. It is frankly embarrassing.
There are perfectly reasonable things to admire about a person.
His character.
His competence.
His kindness.
And somehow my brain decided:
Yes. The forehead papules.
Excellent.
Very dignified.
And, embarrassingly, I like saying his name.
….
I don’t know why. I just do.
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Maybe none of this means anything. Maybe he is simply kind. Maybe this is simply how he is with people he likes. Maybe he is like this with everyone.
I wouldn’t know.
That’s the strange thing about liking someone from the receiving end. I know exactly what his little gestures feel like to me. I have no idea what they feel like to him.
And there is so much of him I don’t know.
I don’t know how he handles anger.
Or conflict.
Or hurt.
I don’t know what his difficult days look like.
I don’t know how he loves. I don’t know how he treats someone when they are close enough to truly disappoint him.
To be honest, I don’t even know whether the person I’ve come to like would be someone I’d want to build a life with. The things I don’t know about him are far greater than the things I do.
But I’ve encountered enough of him to be curious about the rest.
And perhaps that’s all this is.
Not a love story.
Not a promise.
Not even an answer.
Just curiosity.
The quiet kind that makes you wonder what someone is like beyond the little piece of them you happened to meet.
I met an ordinary man.
I spent a lot of ordinary time with him.
And somewhere in all that ordinary time, I became interested in the rest of him.
Not because I think he’s perfect.
Not because I know him.
But because I don’t.
I only know a small part of him.
And somehow, that small part was enough to make me want to know the rest.
Maybe he is simply kind.
Maybe I am simply fond.
Maybe those little moments meant something to me and nothing to him.
I don’t know.
And perhaps I don’t need to know.
Because for now, I can just be grateful that I got to know this little piece of him at all.
That I got to share ordinary time with him. That I got to laugh at stupid things. That I got to build a little collection of memories that probably look insignificant from the outside, but somehow became precious to me.
Maybe people don’t always have to become something to have meant something. Maybe some people simply pass through our lives and, without trying, leave them a little warmer than they found them.
So, for now, I’ll leave it here.
I met an ordinary man.
And, somehow, I noticed him.
And perhaps that’s actually enough.
Enough to have made me smile. Enough to have made me curious. Enough to have made an ordinary year feel a little less ordinary.
And that’s enough for now.
