For about six months, she had been seeing a man at the gym. Seeing him was going very well. Speaking to him remained a separate project.
They nodded. They waved. There was recognition, continuity, a certain reliability. In another setting, this might have counted as a working relationship.
She was in her mid-forties and perfectly capable of conversation. Put her near someone, introduce her, give the exchange the smallest practical beginning, and she could talk. She could generally talk to anybody.
Unfortunately, she fancied this one.
This had made the usual opening procedure considerably more difficult. The man was cute. They recognised each other. They had already established that both possessed the social skills required to lift a hand. There was very little left to arrange, and somehow that was the part neither of them was arranging.
Twice that week, she had had an opportunity to introduce herself.
The first opportunity passed without an introduction.
The second confirmed that the first had not been an isolated incident.
He had not introduced himself either. She began supplying explanations. Perhaps he had a partner. Perhaps he did not like her. Both possibilities were plausible, and both had the considerable advantage of requiring no conversation with him.
His actual opinion remained unavailable.
There was something especially irritating about knowing how to do a thing while continuing not to do it. She could recognise the problem clearly. She could even recognise the obvious next sentence. Recognition, however, was already the most advanced part of this relationship.
When she described the situation to other people, she could laugh at it. She knew she was being shy. She knew that knowing was not doing very much. She also wondered whether she was holding his gaze long enough, adding eye-contact duration to a situation that still lacked names.
Six months was quite a while to have someone become familiar in this particular way: no longer a stranger, not yet an acquaintance, definitely attractive.
There had been two openings that week. Neither had become a conversation.
The waving arrangement remained in place.
