Visited with an old friend of mine today, Tom T, age 72

Visited with an old friend of mine today, Tom T, age 72
We were outside talking about life situations, as usual.

He suddenly says "18 again? You're looking good."
I smiled.
He said, "I got you to smile"
I replied: "I don't smile often. I learned at a young age, 19 or 20 to
be careful when I smile at someone. Especially men. They take it the wrong way."

Later on in the evening I was in my vehicle leaving the parking lot of
HyVee.  A young man who appeared to be a teenager with strawberry blonde hair
met my glance as I backed out of my parking spot and smiled a big smile at me.
I smiled back quickly and drove off and headed home.
He was the one who said "Thank you" when I put my grocery cart
in the entrance of the store as I was leaving.

For many years I have been dressing down,
wearing no makeup, no hair coloring, wearing no jewelry
or minimal jewelry such as one plain silver ring or a small
pendant, driving an old 1990's vehicle with abundant rust
and peeling paint,
wearing boring old used hand me down plain clothes
in an attempt to stop
being approached and having men make passes at me.

This is because I am tired of having every "dog" man around
trying to pick me up.
And I don't think I am that good looking.
I am obviously not very smart.
I think I am a plain, average looking and average or below average
intelligent person.