A peculiarity

Of late, I have noticed the world smiling at me. Over the past year or so, I have regained much of the joy I used to feel in being part of the world, but I until recently was still separate to it. Lately, the world smiles back. I like this, yet when the smiles come with interested looking looks, I am more cautious, mostly because of the kind of attraction I was once used to receiving. Rarely those free from baggage, rather instead the emotionally, or relationally, unavailable. Those who wanted me were often in relationships - I remember once being followed for over an hour round Preston by one of my married, middle aged employers as he attempted to persuade me that I should accompany him to his hotel - or recently bereft of them, seeking something, someone to fill a void, briefly imagining me to be more interesting a distraction than I am before realising that they're still emotionally broken. Sometimes they are those I like, but not like that. Sometimes they are those I used to like, reciprocating only after the emotion has gone. Historically, there has been something in the way attraction has worked that has meant that I've only been attractive when I've been somehow unattainable, which I find peculiar in the extreme. And so, while it's nice to suddenly notice that I'm being noticed, it's a little disconcerting given past precedent. Still. I am older, wiser, and still as sure that everyone approaches these things guilelessly and honestly as I ever was.