Beaky's Blather

When they met

He’d a vague sort of ideal for the ‘perfect one’… perfect partner in life. Held it in his mind, since, well forever it had seemed. It had been there, unspoken…he wouldn’t have been able to provide a definition.  

‘She…’ it was a she, ‘would have… well, you know, just felt right. Would have, fitted,’ he’d say. He’d know she was right… when they met, but they never had. He seemed, some people said, to be looking in the wrong place, or worse, for the wrong thing and this made people, people who knew him…well women mostly… in fact only women… wonder, did he really?  Did he really know what sort of woman he wanted?

‘She’d feel just right,’ he’d say, when they questioned him… in the pub. People… well women mostly, only women in fact, would ask him. 

‘You’ve been out with half the girls in town. You’ll get a reputation,’ they’d scold. ‘What are you looking for? Surely one of the girls you’ve met was good enough for you?’ He’d only smile in a way that he thought looked charming and amused, but most people… well women that is, thought it a rather sad smile. 

Men talked to him too, but mainly about football of which he knew almost nothing, and so they thought… when they met, that he didn’t seem to know much at all. 

I’m sure to meet her if I keep looking, he’d say.  Only this evening he’d caught the eye of a woman across the room. She was talking with some of the women that he knew. He could, he thought, easily go across the room now and talk to them and so meet her. But then she spoke with the women again as they all looked at him, which was unnerving… and then she didn’t look at him again… which was a shame because… she didn’t know and neither did he… that they were both the one who’d feel right… when they met. But they never did.