What’s the sexiest thing someone can do to another person? No. Don’t answer that. I’ll tell you. It’s holding their gaze. Maintaining eye contact. Not blinking. Not looking away.
And here I am, staring into her eyes. She stares into my eyes. Bright lashes line her dark eyes, our faces so close I can feel the warmth of her breath against my cheeks. Any slight movement and our lips would accidentally brush against each other. I need to stay focused. I’m here for my annual eye exam. Focus. Focus. Focus.
Things had been a bit disorienting lately. Vision loss came around the time I turned 50. I did what one normally does when this happens: I squinted like Marilyn Monroe and decoded the words on the page. But over the years my eyesight deteriorated and there was no way around it: I needed glasses.
My eye doctor, who I assume is in her 40s, asks me if I can see more clearly with option one or option two. The problem is that I don’t see any difference between either. I’d like to get the right answer, just to please her. She repeats the question and I look at her wistfully, not sure how best to answer.
“Is it wrong that you are attracted to your ophthalmologist?” I ask my husband later. “You have no idea how she looked into my eyes.”
“Their job is to stare you in the eye,” he notes. And it’s true. So I try not to think about how he gently moved my head to rest on a metal ledge. Or the blast of icy air he blew across my eyeballs. Is it just me, or is the whole optics thing weirdly erotic?
I’m not sure what’s going on. I’ve never been attracted to another woman before. I’m ambushed, intrigued, and frankly, intoxicated by it all. But here’s the point. I don’t think this has to do with eye contact. Or the plot twist of unexpected events, when I thought events were no longer possible.
It’s about how we are systematically removing contact with people from our daily lives, so that we are now vulnerable when we are physically close to them. Have you noticed how we are automating everything, from supermarket checkouts to airport check-ins? How and when did we think it was a good idea to replace people with machines? I don’t know the answer, but I want to leave the question there, floating in our collective subconscious. As a reminder for when we are told that this is all part of the evolution of humanity and our world falls apart due to another global blackout.
The truth is this: we can eliminate people from our existence, but we can’t stop our natural instincts from kicking in when we connect with another human being. Doesn’t this inevitably happen when professionals like doctors, fitness trainers, and dentists enter our orbit? Strangers whose job it is to get close to or even touch our bodies.
Last week I had an appointment with my new gynecologist. Right from the start we realized we had a mutual doctor friend, kids of the same age, and identical taste in shoes. She immediately felt like my new best friend and we told her we needed to meet up for a drink with our mutual friend, before she left me in an embarrassing situation with the words, “Okay. Let’s put you in stirrups.”
I go back to my eye doctor. I’m sitting there in the dim light. She tells me that I definitely need glasses. I also have a circle around my cornea that could be a sign of high cholesterol, which I need to get checked out. This explains why she’s been staring me in the eyes so intently. And yet, and yet…
As I get up to leave, she says, “I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but there’s something about you that I think has a very nice energy.” My husband says I’m making this part up. And it’s true that I make things up. Making things up is part of a storyteller’s job, but I didn’t make this part up. Maybe, just maybe, my ophthalmologist also felt some kind of connection between us.
I choose a new pair of glasses. One of the mysteries of modern life is why, when faced with a choice, you always go for the most expensive ones. Add to that the multifocal, anti-reflective and anti-smudge lenses and they cost me nearly £500. I sigh deeply. On the plus side, buying them gives me an excuse to go back to my ophthalmologist. I’ll let you know how it goes.