Have you ever been seriously stared at?

Not when you catch someone looking just before he turns away. I mean fixated, eyes locked, seemingly unashamed…staring. If was a stranger, label him a creepy stalker, and get on with life (hopefully never seeing the wierdo again). But my Staring Stan is someone I’ve known for a long time.

I should ask him why, but what if he denies it? Seriously, I SAW you! But maybe he was just spacing out? He wasn’t. Staring is staring. And when it happens intensely enough to make me double check I’m fully clothed, it is a problem.

In high school, teenage boys stare at teenaged girls, but high school ended twenty five years ago. I’m not a circus freak. Stop staring!

I should be the one staring at him. What happened ? He used to be fun. He used to know how to relax. He used to have a personality, but we chose different paths. He created a “Leave it to Beaver” household with a wife and two children. I never bought the white dress and I didn’t give birth. I also didn’t become a completely different person.

Is he staring because he recognizes that I’m still me? I haven’t changed. Somehow, I missed the chapter in the Book of Life where everyone casts off their younger selves and becomes middle aged stereotypes.

He is exactly the kind of guy HE used to make fun of.

Ironically, now he looks at me the way I looked at him twenty years ago with a mix of awe and disbelief. Is he wondering how his life could have turned out differently? Is he lost in a daydream of the past trying to hold onto it a little longer? Maybe, if only… but once you start to wake up, and the present comes back into focus, it’s already too late.