When my dentist first sees me, sometimes his eyes widen just a little. That is all it takes. Before he has done anything except look at me, I am already trying to work out whether he is pleased to see a patient or pleased to see me.
I am 37, and I usually feel reasonably confident about knowing when a man finds me attractive. With him, that confidence has disappeared. He is charismatic in a way that makes his attention feel unusually good. I know he is like this with everyone. I can acknowledge that perfectly sensible fact and still find myself looking for the tiny exception that might belong to me.
There is something especially frustrating about recognizing your own wishful thinking while continuing to participate in it. I am not missing the obvious explanation. I have it right there: this is a charming man doing his job. Yet an expression that lasts a moment can seem more persuasive than everything I already know about the situation.
Once I am in the chair, the attraction becomes harder to ignore. He is close because he has to be. His leg touches my arm; his chest brushes the back of my head as he works. These are ordinary details of the appointment, but they do not feel ordinary to me. I am acutely aware of him in a way that has very little to do with why I booked the visit.
A touch near my lip, his hand gently holding my jaw: I notice all of it. I am not describing him making a move. I am describing how much I want those moments to mean something. The appointment has taken on an erotic charge for me, even though nothing in his behavior establishes that he shares it.
That distinction is easy enough to put into words afterward. In the chair, I am the woman having the crush, not an impartial observer of it. A man I find attractive is giving me his full attention, and the setting supplies a closeness that we have not chosen together outside it.
What keeps catching me is the uncertainty. I keep treating the next glance as if it might settle the question. It never quite does. I leave with impressions, not an answer.
There has been no invitation, no confession and no moment that turns this into a mutual flirtation. The desire is mine; his intentions remain unknown. For someone used to trusting her ability to read a man, that is an unexpectedly consuming place to be.
I have one more appointment next week. One more time in that chair with a man whose attention I enjoy far more than I expected to.
