“I have always been an admirer. I regard the gift of admiration as indispensable if one is to amount to something; I don’t know where I would be without it.”~ Francois de La Rochefoucauld 
For the second time in about a year and a half, I’ve been the object of someone’s secret admiration.
Oh the pressure!!
I had a note waiting on my front door last night. Expressing their deep and secret attraction to me. And throughout the night, I could not figure out on my own who this might have come from. I’ve been through it twice now.
However, I wouldn’t have to go and put on my Sherlock Holmes jacket because I had tossed the note aside last night and went to bed. When I showed my face this morning, a FEMALE came up to me and asked, “Did you get that note on your door last night?”
I think that I was feeling relieved as it could have been a man. But I got lucky, so to speak.
She gave herself away. However, in a weird and uncomfortable effort to not offend her, I told her that I had received no such note. I also reminded her that this was a “bad neighborhood” and even the residents here are quite in everyone’s business all of the time. So I explained that perhaps maybe someone took it so that they could know what was going on.
And yes I know, I probably should have confirmed it with her that she was the one. But because I told nobody about it… how would she know? And of course I know, I know… I should have told her that I was not interested. But the way I handled it was the way I handled it. I will find the best way to tell her that I am not interested.
When she had left, I asked one of my neighbors if she had been talking about me a lot in recently in the past few days. And they had said that she had been. And that she would always smile and then get lost in her thoughts. That was also a clue for me to know that it was her.
So the secret was exposed. But the first time, it took much longer than overnight.
The last time I had a secret admirer write me a note, it took nearly two weeks to figure it out. I finally was able to when I was given a handwriting sample of a woman and I was able to match it.
But because of the language within the note, it had me guessing for a while. I had only told about four people about this first time, and I suppose it became a game for them (not for me) to see whether or not they could figure out the mystery and discover who it was.
Words like, “You are such an amazing man. You make me smile whenever you are in the room. I would ask you out, but I am from the old school and believe the man should ask me out, and I hope that you do one day. If not, I would love to be great friends.”
Certain words and phrases were clues as to who the person’s identity could have been. I had only two guesses of who it might have been. And of the initial two guesses, one of them was the right person. I even had gone up to her and teased about how it was HER that wrote the note. She was convincing when she was in full denial when I was accusing her of writing the note.
It had pieces of mint chocolate inside of an envelope inside of an envelope that was poorly sealed together.
But as I said, I finally figured out the person who had wrote it by comparing how the writing was similar. For the first person though, I never said a word to her. I never came up to her and said, “I KNOW you wrote the note. I know it was you.” No… I did not do anything. And I just laid low for about a week and kept quiet about it. 
It was a resident who lives here who is about twenty years my senior.
Not only did I figure it out in about two weeks who it was. I also figured out why she had written the note in the first place.
For those of you who do not know me on a personally, I use terms of endearment frequently. I had started to use them with the residents here…. JUST to get them to smile. Because you never know around here, someone might be feeling bad and sick or having a bad day, and a smile actually would make it all better.
So at the time, I had been notorious for greeting someone, for example: “Good Morning, GORGEOUS!”.. yeah, totally notorious for it. And yes, it was Mission Accomplished because in the end, it made people smile. And some of them even laugh about it.
The woman who wrote the first note is more of a shut-in neighbor. And she began to crawl out of her shell. Without really knowing what her story was as to why she always stayed indoors, I just was doing the same thing whenever I saw her in the community room. At the time it was either “GORGEOUS” or “GOOD LOOKING”. I recall several times that she would cover her face in embarrassment and just smile.
I believe that because of how I was treating her and the unintentional flirty nature of my speech, she probably was seeing something in me that didn’t really exist.
But that was a long time ago. At least for me it was. And yes I laugh my head off about it now. In these two cases, I do not believe that I had/have anything to worry about. It was a harmless crush.
And because of note #2, it reminded me of note #1- so I decided to share a laugh with you, the reader about note #1.
This most recent note you might be wondering about? It was plain and simple:
“I think you are funny. Are you with anyone? Check YES or NO.
Seriously! It was one of “those kinds”. Even if I checked YES or NO, who the heck would I give it to? I have no idea. But when the woman came up to me the following morning and inquired, she exposed herself and I knew. It was someone’s care giver. And I’m just not into that kind of thing.
Dambreaker 