I haunt libraries with considerable frequency. At one particular library, I noticed that a man seemed to always be looking at me. I think I first noticed him when I was at the shelves containing videos and DVDs and he was in the lounge in which magazines in plastic cases were placed on racks. Our eyes met for what seemed like more than an instant.

A little later during this same library visit I happened to look up and our eyes met again.

On other visits to the library, I would often see him and he always seemed to be looking at me.

Like myself, the man who seemed to always look at me was middle-aged. He was handsome, bespectacled, and wore his graying hair longish and just above his shoulders.

Sometimes the repeated looks made me uncomfortable. I wondered why he would stare at me.

My behavior is often “off” and I have several quirks. Perhaps I had been mumbling to myself. Many years previously, when I lived in a different city, a man had seemed to stare at me on the bus. Later, he came over to me and whispered, “Ma’am, have you been in the state hospital?” The city was home to a major mental hospital. “No,” I whispered. “But I’ve got a psychiatric disability.” He told me that he’d been the state hospital and noticed that I exhibited some of the same behaviors that he did when his condition was acting up.

Was this man in the library staring at me because he recognized that I was mentally ill?

Then again, I thought, maybe he kept looking at me because I was fidgety. Or maybe my poor posture or trouble walking was causing him to stare.

However, I also knew his staring wasn’t necessarily due to seeing something “wrong.”

He could be repeatedly looking at me because he was attracted to me. That idea was flattering to a woman approaching the big five-oh (I’ve since passed it).

But then I wondered uneasily: Could this guy be dangerous? Am I in trouble?

Sometimes I thought: Why is that weirdo staring at me?

He probably was not dangerous, I decided. If he had been, he would have done something. But I still wasn’t sure. I was still – at least sometimes – slightly scared.

When I went to that library, I started wondering if he would be there.

What WAS this whole thing about? I decided there was only one way to find out. We were both in the magazine section and had exchanged looks several times. By this time, he had gotten a short haircut.

“Hi,” I said to him. “My name is Denise Noe, N-o-e. (I’m in the habit of spelling my last name out since it can be confusing because it is pronounced “no” as in “yes and no.”) What’s yours?”

He told me his name. For the purposes of this essay, I’ll call him “Paul.”

The two of us spoke in semi-whispers since we were in a library. I soon had the strong impression that Paul was a perfectly nice and normal person and that I had never been in any danger.

We talked about one thing and another. I learned that he was often in the library waiting to pick up one of his children from school. Since I was wearing my T-shirt with a reproduction of Koko the gorilla’s painting of a bird on it, I pointed out that out to him. Like most people, he appeared impressed that a simian could paint something representational. I gave him my phone number and told him he could call me if he wished.

A few days later, I answered the phone to hear a man say, “This is Paul.”

“Who?”

“From the library.”

“Oh, hi Paul,” I said.

“I don’t know if I told you this before but I’m a married man,” he said. “I don’t have any plans to cheat on my wife.”

“That’s fine,” I told him. “I wouldn’t want you to.”

He asked if I was still all right with seeing him and I told him I was. I did not intend to engage in any sexual activity but I like to make friends.

We made arrangements and had brunch. It was a pleasant conversation. Paul told me that he had been afraid he was scaring me with his constant looking at me. I admitted I’d been scared at certain points but assured him that I wasn’t anymore.

He made it clear that the reason he could not help looking at me was that he found me extremely attractive – although he did not seek an adulterous relationship.

By this time, my fear of him had disappeared. He seemed like a very nice person and I wanted to make friends with him. I tried to be friendly without being flirtatious since a romantic or sexual relationship was out.

I didn’t hear from him for a while after that. I also didn’t see him at the library for a while.

Did he fear that a friendship with me would endanger his marriage? Or had I just turned him off because of my personality problems? I couldn’t be sure but the latter possibility led me to check Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People out of the library.

Then one day I went to the library and was startled to find him there. “I haven’t seen you in long time, Paul,” I said softly.

He looked up with a small smile. “Did you miss me?” he asked.

I acknowledged that I had.

When I got home that afternoon, I saw a piece of lined paper folded up and on the entrance in front of my apartment. It was a letter from Paul and part of it follows.

“Hi Denise! First, let me apologize for writing to you – I have a hard time telling you this on paper, much less in person! . . . I am very attracted to you. . . . Obviously, at first, it was physical . . . when I first saw you, I couldn’t stop staring! You must have thought I was a freak! I loved your eyes and once you licked your lips, I almost jumped! It was so erotic . . . You had me totally mesmerized and turned on . . . I know you were just sitting there, innocently with a weirdo staring at you, but that is how I felt . . . and still feel. . . . I hope I have not offended you, my main concern is to not hurt you or my family – so I thought maybe I shouldn’t see you . . . I want to be friends, but it is difficult to get over my sexual feeling for you. . . .Since school is ending, and I won’t be around the library much, I felt I should let you know what is going on . . . I’ve very much enjoyed talking to you, you are very kind, and look great in a tight T-shirt!” Paul ended by giving me his email address. We corresponded intermittently. In email, Paul talked of his reaction to the T-shirt I wore when I first introduced myself to him: “You do look incredibly sexy – when you pointed out the art on your shirt I almost died . . . because it was so innocent made it even sexier.”

Our relationship appears to have dissipated. However, one thing I did get out of it was inspiration for a short story. That fiction is entitled “The Man Who Stared” and appears at http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=370127. I’d be very interested to know what readers of this blog think both of my experience and of the short story that was inspired by it.

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