Dental examination of equine gratuities

[simont]

As I was walking to Tesco to buy lunch just now, a very pretty girl going the other way on a bicycle gave me a dazzling smile.

My first thought was to wonder if she was someone I knew but hadn't immediately recognised. My second was to wonder if I might have appeared to be smiling at her due to screwing up my face slightly because I was facing into the sun. The idea that she might have smiled at me just because she felt like brightening my day only came third, and by the time it occurred to me to just take the smile for what it was and have my day brightened by it regardless of the reason, I'd already spent too long trying to work out the motivation for it and puzzlement was outweighing pleasure. Deliberately smiling back certainly wasn't an option, because by the time I thought of it she was long gone.

I think my problem is that the wrong parts of my brain are the quickest to start up, so that I've already looked it in the mouth by the time I notice that it's a gift horse. Sigh.

Comments

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Or you've already gone through the implications of it being human, by the time you realise that conventionally many people would think of it as a horse.

[simont]

Perhaps, although I'm more inclined to think that both of the attitudes I describe are based on the girl being human. Trying to work out her motivation certainly is, but even if I'd just taken the smile for what it is the point would not primarily have been that she was very pretty (although that helped); the major source of pleasure would have been knowing that a random passer-by wanted to brighten my day.

(Or have I missed the point of your comment?)

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Hmm, possibly, possibly not. It's the use of 'gift' that I instinctively went "ick" at, but thinking about it, well come on self, this is Simon, it's not like he's the editor of "Women Are Objects Weekly", is it?

Yay for pretty people smiling, anyway.

[simont]

I intended to refer to the smile as a gift, since it was given freely with no thought of reward. I don't think that involves me having had to think the woman was an object, or a gift (or even a horse!), but if there's some terribly subtle implication of that kind then I didn't intend it and I apologise.

The "gift horse" metaphor is a bloody silly one anyway, come to think of it. It's amazing it's managed to survive in the same world as the Iliad, since the recipients of at least one extremely famous gift horse certainly should have looked it in the mouth!

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

It's ok, I'm just being slightly more insane than usual today because I spent two hours being thrown across the floor yesterday, which was unwise in the first place. I know you're not a horrible chauvinist :)

[drswirly.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I'm glad you've replied to this entry. I was getting my bike from outside Corpus one afternoon, when you walked past and smiled, and possibly even said hello. However, I think this was the first time I'd see you not at the Calling and so not all Callinged-up. By the time I worked out it was you, you'd gone on. I wasn't blanking you - just being slow after an afternoon of maths!

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Oh, I hardly remember. (I'm not offended then!) But I'm glad you weren't blanking me anyway!

[ex-lark-asc.livejournal.com]

Alternatively you may be a perfectly normal bloke, who, when grinned at by pretty woman goes "Buh?" and generally makes a cock of it :)

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

People quite often smile at me randomly in the street in Mill Road and environs. It pleases me so much that I now try to smile at random people when I think of it. About half of them seem to smile back; the rest look suspicious! I think in the town centre, if someone randomly smiled at me in the street, I might suspect they wanted to involve me in market research, though.