There is a woman whose name I don’t even know for which I have this desperate, raw attraction to. I see her from time to time, as we occupy opposite ends of an extremely large social millieu, as friends of friends of friends of friends. I don’t know what it is about her, but I find my eyes wandering toward her if I don’t monitor myself, even as she’s hanging on the arm of some guy. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I’ve never had an attraction like this before.

I mean, sure, there are women whom I’ve met whose beauty literally makes me tremble, but usually it’s never just how hot she is, or how much I want her. Usually there are other dimensions that I quickly learn about—her intelligence, her sense of humor, her kindness, her compassion—an entire package, as it were. This pure lust I’ve usually reserved for movie stars, singer/songwriters, and other celebrities who are as impossible to get to as distant galaxies (whereas the women I actually meet and talk to whom I harbor impossible crushes for are merely as improbable to get to as the outer planets)

There’s a first for everything, I guess.

But in the greater scheme of things, I guess I’d much rather have the entire package, and believe me, I’ve met some quite extraordinary people out there. It doesn’t mean anything, because, as I’ve mentioned, I’ve essentially given up. And I doubt that any of them have ever reciprocated any of these thoughts anyway, and pursuing this line of thought has always led me deep, dark bouts of depression. So we won’t go there, and I don’t want to hear anything about trying.

And I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s just that I live in such a tightly circumscribed little universe. You would think that in a profession like mine where I often need to ask quite intimate questions of people, socializing would never be a problem, but i suppose that it’s precisely because I do these things under the mien of my profession that it’s easy. Without the aegis of doing my job, I’m just another nobody that nobody wants to talk to, full of patent nonsense and mindless drivel and often times desperate loneliness.

So I find myself standing next to χ, for whom, unsurprisingly, I’ve had a crush on, which has manifested from time to time, but which I’ve mostly kept under wraps, since I don’t see her all that often, and there is a guy she is sort of paired-up with, even though nothing authoritative has ever been mentioned. It’s only just wild (and often profane and lascivious) speculation. Which in my universe might as well be true when it comes to women, but whatever.

And I can’t think of anything to say. She gives me a smile and walks past, and part of me is like, “Damn!” while the other part is like, “How else was that going to go? What could I possibly say that wouldn’t be damagingly awkward?”