Our social lives are so limited right now.
I look forward to my trips to the local health food store. I mean I get to check out and even interact with lots of seemingly attractive masked men! I make sure I wear my cute mask. You know, the one with a color that brings out my eyes. I’ve always felt like my blue eyes are one of my greatest assets. I guess showing off my eyes is one of the perks of this never-ending pandemic.
The pandemic is kind of a buzz-kill for singles.
That is until you realize this is your reality and you better find a way to make it work for your growing libido. It took me months not to feel like an apocalyptic zombie in a mask. Months.
Like … how un-sexy is it for a single looking to mingle to wear a mask covering some of their most defining features?
I remember the day a few months back, where I felt like a sexual being in my mask. The cute cashier at my local grocery store was scanning my produce. The one who knows my name. I used to kid myself and think he knew only my name. That was until I asked where he was one day and the woman helping said, “Oh the guy who knows everyone’s name? He’s off today.” Sigh. What a buzz kill.
I loved his friendliness. Sometimes too much so. On one particular day a few months ago, my masked self was asked by his masked self, “So which neighborhood do you live in?” In the span of 43 seconds, we figured out we live blocks away from each other. It was so personal my 42-year-old self felt a little embarrassed. Did I divulge too much information to this cute, blonde, blue-eyed, overly-friendly 20-something cashier? I remember walking out of the store thinking “He’d be a great cat-sitter. Would it be okay for me to ask him if he likes cats the next time I shop?”
A month later and I’m in line at the same store. Sadly, my favorite blonde-haired, blue-eyed, yellow-masked cashier is not working. I’m standing 6-feet apart from an older woman with 5 baguettes, several kinds of cheeses, and a slew of cleaning products. My heavy bags are making my shoulder ache, so I set them down, and as I do, my keys plop onto the floor.
“Germ City,” I think. “Ugh!”
The guy behind me, a taller-than-me, black and silver-haired man with glittering chocolate eyes and a golden tan drops his keys a moment later. I make a joke about it and he laughs.
Was I flirting? He makes a joke about the weight of my bags and the fact that I have several glass bottles littered about.
“That’s how I roll,” I say, with a casual, flirtatious air. “I sprawl myself everywhere.”
As I bag my groceries the man with chocolate eyes drops his keys yet again. “Here we are trying to avoid germs and our keys have other plans,” I say. He laughs, and as I walk out, I think, was I flirting?
Heck yeah, I was flirting!
Desperate times call for new measures.
If masks are the way of life, find some that bring out your eyes and flirt away.
I went into the grocery store today with one of my cuter masks — a pattern the artist on Etsy called, “French floral.” As I was scurrying after a speed-walking blonde-haired sales clerk through the maze-like supplement aisles, a long-haired, man with rippling arm muscles wearing professor-type spectacles made an extra effort to say hello to me even though I was already being helped. As I picked the vitamin-C off the shelf I thought, was he being flirty? He had great energy — and amazing eyes!
If you’re single like me and unwilling to do dating apps, you might have to learn the new art of masked flirtation.
It starts with glittery eyes, an open, jovial heart, a keen intuition, and of course, a mask that brings out your eyes.
Maybe all we ever needed were our eyes.
They are after all the windows to our soul.
Mouths and noses are an added asset. But not all necessary to deem someone worthy of genuine flirtation.
So mask-up and flirt away, my single friends!
What do you have to lose?
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Previously Published on Medium
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