I am attracted to women all the time, but have experienced that "WOW" on at least three occasions. The first time was when one of my buddies and went to the Mexican restaurant where the woman he was dating was working.
She was seating us, and when I saw her I had that definite "WOW" moment! I could not take my eyes off of her. I can probably just use one hand to count the times I have cold-asked a woman for her number, but when my buddy went to the bathroom I did just that. Not only that, but I actually followed up and called her.
The stars were aligned! S was 27 years old and was living with her mother, and her mothers house was almost directly across the alley from the house I was sharing with three women and two of their daughters. She had an amazing story--dropped out of HS at 17 to marry a hard working young man, had a couple of kids, discovered she had a desire to learn that was not shared by her husband, divorced, earned a GED and then a Special Ed teaching certificate, taught for a year, bought a condo, and was doing well.
Then Prop 13 came along and schools laid off new teachers, S among them. She had to take a job in a local biotech manufacturing plant to support her and her kids. The owner of the plant would come through and chat her up, and repeatedly asked for a date. She eventually gave in, and he was very charming and sweet to her and the kids.
That changed instantly when she married him, and she found herself in a terribly abusive relationship where at one point he actually threw her down a flight of stairs. She fled the relationship and even had to go to Canada to get avoid his pursuit of her. She has some Cree blood and was able to take refuge with the First Nations people up there when he sicced the RCMP on her. She had recently managed to divorce him and was starting her new life.
We had a short but intense relationship over Thanksgiving, but as Christmas approached she disappeared. I got the story from her mother some time later. S had been being stalked by someone else she had dated (most likely my buddy), and had met a contractor where she was working, married him, and moved to the East Coast. Not only that, but she had another baby as well! When asked if I have any children, I reply "not that I know of" as this is a possible!
The second time was some years later when I was teaching at USC. My doctorate is from UCLA and I saw that the UCLA women's volleyball team was coming to campus. I went down to the small gym that housed volleyball games and had a seat 8-9 rows up in the bleachers for the game. In the very first row was a woman who elicited my next "WOW".
She was very modestly dressed, wearing a pant suit complete with jacket, and I could only see the back of her head or her profile when she talked to the person next to her, but I felt an almost magnetic attraction to her. This went on through the match, and after it ended I descended the bleachers and was able to catch up with her.
That was the first time I saw the person she was with, and was astounded to see that it was one of me best friends, B. B is one of those incredibly handsome men who could be described as the archtype Chad. He is, however, also an incredibly good man. He could have any woman he wanted, but he himself was waiting for that "WOW" moment. We chatted and they invited me to dinner with them.
B was in heaven. He had been dating R for a couple of weeks and felt that he had finally found that partner he was waiting for. There are parallels with the S story, as R had married young to a very rich Panamanian man who then abused her terribly. She had been able after a lot of machinations to escape and divorce him.
That was in October, and the next time I saw B was at UCLA and he was despondent. His commitment to R had only gone stronger over time, and then on Thanksgiving he had her over for dinner. After dinner they went for a walk in his West LA neighborhood. It was dark, a man in a hoodie with a gun confronted them, demanded their money, and then before they could even react he shot R five times in the chest and ran off.
The third time was in Sacramento where I was at a club and saw a woman dancing who entranced me. Once again, very modestly dressed, attractive but not head-turningly so, but I could not take my eyes off of her. She seemed to be with a group of young men who had the look of guys who drive around in Lamborghini's. They would take turns dancing with her.
In that case I did not approach her, and wonder if I should have. Some friends have claimed to have a "gaydar" that allows them to spot gay folks, and I am wondering if I have some kind of fatal attraction to woman who have been badly abused.
