Missed Connections-Middle aged F version

[elizaloo]

I'm sure y'all have had opportunities to get to know someone interesting IRL and your brain had a total DUH moment and the chance was gone. This was my moment, yesterday:

I had lunch with a GF (so nice clothes and makeup!), ran some errands and stopped at a fast food joint to grab lunch for the hubs. Dude and I were on the sidewalk going into the restaurant at the same time, joked about a sign in the window of the place and he did the 'guy scan' as he held the door open, smiled and we talked on our way in.

Tall, fit, silver hair, interesting hat on his head that could have led to some really deep conversation....he hit the head right away and I ordered my to-go meal - then I went to the bathroom too since it's a long drive to our rural home from town.

When I came out of the bathroom, he had his plate and pop in hand, kind of standing there like he was wondering where to sit, in an empty restaurant...smiled at me while I grabbed H's food in a bag, and the disappointment on his face was hard to miss as I turned towards the door.

So - background, I've had cancer and two strokes as a result...back in the day, my brain would have easily put 2+2 together and I'd have KNOWN better..but sadly, I don't compute as quickly as I used to...

I was thinking, "Gotta get home quickly with H's meal while it's still 'warm'" and NOT, "Hey this dude was hoping you were eating too and he was going to ask you if you wanted to sit together."

It wasn't until I was driving home that I clued in...and when I mentioned it to Hubs (we have an open marriage) he said, "You should have asked if he wanted company for lunch, got a Coke and sat down with him!"

I may have to go to town and get KFC for him more often

 

[Natalia1981]

You just never know when a connection will be established. We so often miss moments of nice conversation or perhaps an opportunity to make a new friend (sexual or otherwise).

 

[bestkeptsecret678]

I'm sure y'all have had opportunities to get to know someone interesting IRL and your brain had a total DUH moment and the chance was gone. This was my moment, yesterday:

I had lunch with a GF (so nice clothes and makeup!), ran some errands and stopped at a fast food joint to grab lunch for the hubs. Dude and I were on the sidewalk going into the restaurant at the same time, joked about a sign in the window of the place and he did the 'guy scan' as he held the door open, smiled and we talked on our way in.

Tall, fit, silver hair, interesting hat on his head that could have led to some really deep conversation....he hit the head right away and I ordered my to-go meal - then I went to the bathroom too since it's a long drive to our rural home from town.

When I came out of the bathroom, he had his plate and pop in hand, kind of standing there like he was wondering where to sit, in an empty restaurant...smiled at me while I grabbed H's food in a bag, and the disappointment on his face was hard to miss as I turned towards the door.

So - background, I've had cancer and two strokes as a result...back in the day, my brain would have easily put 2+2 together and I'd have KNOWN better..but sadly, I don't compute as quickly as I used to...

I was thinking, "Gotta get home quickly with H's meal while it's still 'warm'" and NOT, "Hey this dude was hoping you were eating too and he was going to ask you if you wanted to sit together."

It wasn't until I was driving home that I clued in...and when I mentioned it to Hubs (we have an open marriage) he said, "You should have asked if he wanted company for lunch, got a Coke and sat down with him!"

I may have to go to town and get KFC for him more often

I have many thoughts on this. I will message you directly. Spoiler alert: I’m not him… but am pulling for you.

 

[TemptationTango]

I don't know what is worse....your scenario of cluelessness, or my reaction to a similar situation.

Leaving a restaurant with a few work buds. A real hottie was walking in and she held the door for me, looked me up and down and said with a big smile..."nice boots". I swear at that moment the entire dork tree fell on me and I croaked, "tank you" as I walked past her. No, I mean it came out just like Kermit the frog would have said it...I was horrified...wtf? I felt like I had been shot with a tranquilizer gun.....frozen by Rhino opiates. The ribbing was brutal...but deserved

 

[elizaloo]

I don't know what is worse....your scenario of cluelessness, or my reaction to a similar situation.

Leaving a restaurant with a few work buds. A real hottie was walking in and she held the door for me, looked me up and down and said with a big smile..."nice boots". I swear at that moment the entire dork tree fell on me and I croaked, "tank you" as I walked past her. No, I mean it came out just like Kermit the frog would have said it...I was horrified...wtf? I felt like I had been shot with a tranquilizer gun.....frozen by Rhino opiates. The ribbing was brutal...but deserved

Bummer, she might have given you a really, really wild ride too. One you'd never forget. One that would make you hard just thinking about her...

Ooops, sorry, got carried away there. Writer's prerogative and all. That could be a story..... /wanders off to write some ideas in Word.

Seems to be a common thing - I do know a few guys who would think on their feet - my H is one of them. He'd be all smooth with the response and she'd have melted.

Me, I'm still scoping out vehicles like his around town...maybe one day I'll even be in KFC when he stops by. And then I'll turn bright red (the bane of fair skin), stutter, mumble and run out the door again...

smooth I am not.

 

[lit_ch3]

My 2 cents. Or experiences....

Started a thread like this - think I called it "but-for's" or something. Basic idea was who else has had experiences that got cut short, for whatever reason ( the "but-for" part)
that could've/would've morphed into something else.

I put up the example of walking/running through O'hare one evening. Everyone was in crowds racing to get to gates for their connection. The weather was not great, which always adds to the angst inside an airport. But from a ways away, there was a woman walking toward me, almost a full head taller than those around her. We locked eyes. And did not lose the lock, despite the crowds pushing us closer. And then, just like that, we were past each other. I started jostling my way toward the side of the crowd, to get out of the throng, and turn to see if I could catch another glimpse of her. Once near the wall, I dared turn around. She'd done the same, and was looking back.

I mouthed "Sorry, gotta run" over the throngs. She gave a thumb, like a hitchhiking thumb, and mouthed back "Me too."
I again mouthed "Sorry."
"Me too."

That was sometime in the mid-90s. The second, and last, was four, maybe five years ago. I'd gone to the local grocery store, and on the way in noticed a car with a sticker on it for something I was interested in. Doesn't matter what it was, but for brevity's sake, it involved dogs, and I have two. I did my business, and came back out and the owner was just loading her stuff into her car. "Excuse me, you're involved with XXX?" She turned, looked at me and said, "Yes, yes I am." To be honest, I was kinda bowled over. In another life, another point in time, I'd've asked her for more of her time. As it turned out, we ended up talking for almost half an hour, laughing, a little teasing, and, on afterthought, a lot of flirting, on both our parts. She noticed the time, "Oh shit! I gotta go feed my kids."

I got home and told my wife I'd run into someone involved with XXX, and that's why I was late. She was fine with it. I kept to myself what I thought had happened.

Fast forward a couple weeks, I'm doing yard work down the driveway, and she comes walking up the road with her dog. I called out, and she stopped. I walked the rest of the way down the driveway, and the first words out of her mouth were "I'm married." I looked back up the driveway and said "Me too." She looked down the road, bit her lip a little, and I just started babbling, completely overriding her apparent concerns, like it was nothing to me. In just a few minutes, we were right back where we'd left off in the parking lot of the grocery store, and the conversation and banter were going again, just like it had that night.

Her dog started getting impatient, and she made the first move to go. She looked at me, and asked "How about we act like we never met?" I thought for a minute, realized this was probably best, and agreed. Her eyes were still questioning me however.

"It wasn't nothing," I said.

She looked up the road this time before biting her lip, turned back to me with a tear in one eye. "It wasn't nothing."

"C'mon Rex." And then she was gone.

A year, maybe 18months later, my dogs and I were hiking at a place across town, and a dog came bounding toward us. Her dog. He remembered me, came right up, and the three of them were sniffing while he was trying to make sure it was me. She and her kids came around the corner. The kids tried calling her dog, but he was having none of them. They said something like Mom! He's not listening to us! She came over, got him on leash, glanced up at me and whispered "Thank you."

She and her husband sold their house and moved I don't know where a little while after that. We never had any other communication. Just one of those things that happens, and, "but for" both of us being married, who knows what would have happened.

 

[TemptationTango]

My 2 cents. Or experiences....

Started a thread like this - think I called it "but-for's" or something. Basic idea was who else has had experiences that got cut short, for whatever reason ( the "but-for" part)
that could've/would've morphed into something else.

I put up the example of walking/running through O'hare one evening. Everyone was in crowds racing to get to gates for their connection. The weather was not great, which always adds to the angst inside an airport. But from a ways away, there was a woman walking toward me, almost a full head taller than those around her. We locked eyes. And did not lose the lock, despite the crowds pushing us closer. And then, just like that, we were past each other. I started jostling my way toward the side of the crowd, to get out of the throng, and turn to see if I could catch another glimpse of her. Once near the wall, I dared turn around. She'd done the same, and was looking back.

I mouthed "Sorry, gotta run" over the throngs. She gave a thumb, like a hitchhiking thumb, and mouthed back "Me too."
I again mouthed "Sorry."
"Me too."

That was sometime in the mid-90s. The second, and last, was four, maybe five years ago. I'd gone to the local grocery store, and on the way in noticed a car with a sticker on it for something I was interested in. Doesn't matter what it was, but for brevity's sake, it involved dogs, and I have two. I did my business, and came back out and the owner was just loading her stuff into her car. "Excuse me, you're involved with XXX?" She turned, looked at me and said, "Yes, yes I am." To be honest, I was kinda bowled over. In another life, another point in time, I'd've asked her for more of her time. As it turned out, we ended up talking for almost half an hour, laughing, a little teasing, and, on afterthought, a lot of flirting, on both our parts. She noticed the time, "Oh shit! I gotta go feed my kids."

I got home and told my wife I'd run into someone involved with XXX, and that's why I was late. She was fine with it. I kept to myself what I thought had happened.

Fast forward a couple weeks, I'm doing yard work down the driveway, and she comes walking up the road with her dog. I called out, and she stopped. I walked the rest of the way down the driveway, and the first words out of her mouth were "I'm married." I looked back up the driveway and said "Me too." She looked down the road, bit her lip a little, and I just started babbling, completely overriding her apparent concerns, like it was nothing to me. In just a few minutes, we were right back where we'd left off in the parking lot of the grocery store, and the conversation and banter were going again, just like it had that night.

Her dog started getting impatient, and she made the first move to go. She looked at me, and asked "How about we act like we never met?" I thought for a minute, realized this was probably best, and agreed. Her eyes were still questioning me however.

"It wasn't nothing," I said.

She looked up the road this time before biting her lip, turned back to me with a tear in one eye. "It wasn't nothing."

"C'mon Rex." And then she was gone.

A year, maybe 18months later, my dogs and I were hiking at a place across town, and a dog came bounding toward us. Her dog. He remembered me, came right up, and the three of them were sniffing while he was trying to make sure it was me. She and her kids came around the corner. The kids tried calling her dog, but he was having none of them. They said something like Mom! He's not listening to us! She came over, got him on leash, glanced up at me and whispered "Thank you."

She and her husband sold their house and moved I don't know where a little while after that. We never had any other communication. Just one of those things that happens, and, "but for" both of us being married, who knows what would have happened.

The law of attraction is a powerful entity.....

 

[fullservice65]

On a train in central Europe with my wife, an amazingly beautiful woman and her brother were seated facing us. She was a ballerina from Bulgaria and was clearly flirting with me. After she said something about my "sister," I was forced to admit the actual relationship, and the conversation petered out.
That hasn't stopped me from fantasizing about us in the train bathroom.

 

[elizaloo]

My 2 cents. Or experiences....

Started a thread like this - think I called it "but-for's" or something. Basic idea was who else has had experiences that got cut short, for whatever reason ( the "but-for" part)
that could've/would've morphed into something else.

I put up the example of walking/running through O'hare one evening. Everyone was in crowds racing to get to gates for their connection. The weather was not great, which always adds to the angst inside an airport. But from a ways away, there was a woman walking toward me, almost a full head taller than those around her. We locked eyes. And did not lose the lock, despite the crowds pushing us closer. And then, just like that, we were past each other. I started jostling my way toward the side of the crowd, to get out of the throng, and turn to see if I could catch another glimpse of her. Once near the wall, I dared turn around. She'd done the same, and was looking back.

I mouthed "Sorry, gotta run" over the throngs. She gave a thumb, like a hitchhiking thumb, and mouthed back "Me too."
I again mouthed "Sorry."
"Me too."

That was sometime in the mid-90s. The second, and last, was four, maybe five years ago. I'd gone to the local grocery store, and on the way in noticed a car with a sticker on it for something I was interested in. Doesn't matter what it was, but for brevity's sake, it involved dogs, and I have two. I did my business, and came back out and the owner was just loading her stuff into her car. "Excuse me, you're involved with XXX?" She turned, looked at me and said, "Yes, yes I am." To be honest, I was kinda bowled over. In another life, another point in time, I'd've asked her for more of her time. As it turned out, we ended up talking for almost half an hour, laughing, a little teasing, and, on afterthought, a lot of flirting, on both our parts. She noticed the time, "Oh shit! I gotta go feed my kids."

I got home and told my wife I'd run into someone involved with XXX, and that's why I was late. She was fine with it. I kept to myself what I thought had happened.

Fast forward a couple weeks, I'm doing yard work down the driveway, and she comes walking up the road with her dog. I called out, and she stopped. I walked the rest of the way down the driveway, and the first words out of her mouth were "I'm married." I looked back up the driveway and said "Me too." She looked down the road, bit her lip a little, and I just started babbling, completely overriding her apparent concerns, like it was nothing to me. In just a few minutes, we were right back where we'd left off in the parking lot of the grocery store, and the conversation and banter were going again, just like it had that night.

Her dog started getting impatient, and she made the first move to go. She looked at me, and asked "How about we act like we never met?" I thought for a minute, realized this was probably best, and agreed. Her eyes were still questioning me however.

"It wasn't nothing," I said.

She looked up the road this time before biting her lip, turned back to me with a tear in one eye. "It wasn't nothing."

"C'mon Rex." And then she was gone.

A year, maybe 18months later, my dogs and I were hiking at a place across town, and a dog came bounding toward us. Her dog. He remembered me, came right up, and the three of them were sniffing while he was trying to make sure it was me. She and her kids came around the corner. The kids tried calling her dog, but he was having none of them. They said something like Mom! He's not listening to us! She came over, got him on leash, glanced up at me and whispered "Thank you."

She and her husband sold their house and moved I don't know where a little while after that. We never had any other communication. Just one of those things that happens, and, "but for" both of us being married, who knows what would have happened.

I’m a believer in fate…that she kept turning up in your life meant something. I don’t know what….

And I get the whole but-for…in your case marriage stopped both of you from pursuing each other.

In my case, H said ‘if you see him again, have lunch with him’…so of course I’ll never see him again! Such is the way it goes.

 

[lit_ch3]

You never know....kinda rooting for ya here.

 

[HumpDayHoratio]

My 2 cents. Or experiences....

Started a thread like this - think I called it "but-for's" or something. Basic idea was who else has had experiences that got cut short, for whatever reason ( the "but-for" part)
that could've/would've morphed into something else.

I put up the example of walking/running through O'hare one evening. Everyone was in crowds racing to get to gates for their connection. The weather was not great, which always adds to the angst inside an airport. But from a ways away, there was a woman walking toward me, almost a full head taller than those around her. We locked eyes. And did not lose the lock, despite the crowds pushing us closer. And then, just like that, we were past each other. I started jostling my way toward the side of the crowd, to get out of the throng, and turn to see if I could catch another glimpse of her. Once near the wall, I dared turn around. She'd done the same, and was looking back.

I mouthed "Sorry, gotta run" over the throngs. She gave a thumb, like a hitchhiking thumb, and mouthed back "Me too."
I again mouthed "Sorry."
"Me too."

That was sometime in the mid-90s. The second, and last, was four, maybe five years ago. I'd gone to the local grocery store, and on the way in noticed a car with a sticker on it for something I was interested in. Doesn't matter what it was, but for brevity's sake, it involved dogs, and I have two. I did my business, and came back out and the owner was just loading her stuff into her car. "Excuse me, you're involved with XXX?" She turned, looked at me and said, "Yes, yes I am." To be honest, I was kinda bowled over. In another life, another point in time, I'd've asked her for more of her time. As it turned out, we ended up talking for almost half an hour, laughing, a little teasing, and, on afterthought, a lot of flirting, on both our parts. She noticed the time, "Oh shit! I gotta go feed my kids."

I got home and told my wife I'd run into someone involved with XXX, and that's why I was late. She was fine with it. I kept to myself what I thought had happened.

Fast forward a couple weeks, I'm doing yard work down the driveway, and she comes walking up the road with her dog. I called out, and she stopped. I walked the rest of the way down the driveway, and the first words out of her mouth were "I'm married." I looked back up the driveway and said "Me too." She looked down the road, bit her lip a little, and I just started babbling, completely overriding her apparent concerns, like it was nothing to me. In just a few minutes, we were right back where we'd left off in the parking lot of the grocery store, and the conversation and banter were going again, just like it had that night.

Her dog started getting impatient, and she made the first move to go. She looked at me, and asked "How about we act like we never met?" I thought for a minute, realized this was probably best, and agreed. Her eyes were still questioning me however.

"It wasn't nothing," I said.

She looked up the road this time before biting her lip, turned back to me with a tear in one eye. "It wasn't nothing."

"C'mon Rex." And then she was gone.

A year, maybe 18months later, my dogs and I were hiking at a place across town, and a dog came bounding toward us. Her dog. He remembered me, came right up, and the three of them were sniffing while he was trying to make sure it was me. She and her kids came around the corner. The kids tried calling her dog, but he was having none of them. They said something like Mom! He's not listening to us! She came over, got him on leash, glanced up at me and whispered "Thank you."

She and her husband sold their house and moved I don't know where a little while after that. We never had any other communication. Just one of those things that happens, and, "but for" both of us being married, who knows what would have happened.

I love this kind of story. Not that you missed out, but that both of you had that “moment”, and wondered.

Over my time I’ve probably had more of these than I can count but only one or two like this one. Where there was real emotion attached. Thanks for this.

 

[lit_ch3]

I love this kind of story. Not that you missed out, but that both of you had that “moment”, and wondered.

Over my time I’ve probably had more of these than I can count but only one or two like this one. Where there was real emotion attached. Thanks for this.

After a little while, like late 20s/early 30s, I finally learned to put a whole lot more credence in first impressions, first looks, whatever. There are 4 people I've kept in my life - I'm 68 now - that from the first time we met, we got along famously. Two guys, two girls. And one I met in HS. I talk with all at least weekly.

Back to what Lit's mostly about, except for my wife, the 2 longer lasting relationships I had were based on first looks. We each knew we were going to fuck. It was just a matter of time, and opportunity. But, that first glance? There was no question.