Better Now

I was thinking the other day (while on the treadmill, which is, next to the shower, a place where a lot of good, unthinking thinking happens if you know what I mean) about the kind of men I've been attracted to.

In high school, I was attracted to the stoner/skater type (for lack of a better term.) Them, and the gorgeous, older guys; the grade 12 jocks, rock and rollers, completely unavailable ones. Both types were boys I couldn't get. Or didn't think I could get anyway, and I think in high school that matters more than you know at the time.

But those "stoner" boys, they were also just a little on the edge. They didn't care about how they were supposed to look or what they were supposed to be doing, they just did their own thing and I think that's what got me. That they were so carefree in my eyes. That they grew their hair long and didn't wear whatever it was the cool kids were supposed to wear.

In University, I was (perhaps once again) attracted to the bad boys. Well, in first year anyway. (Not sure what I was attracted to after that, as that relationship dragged along with me through my entire first degree.) Not the stoner/skaters this time, but the boys who were still on the fringe. The boys who hung at the edges of a party and smoked. (Smoking was outrageously bad in my eyes. Still is. I strongly strongly dislike smokers. Can't be around cigarettes.) These were the boys who skipped classes and were first to arrive at the pub and last to leave. These were boys who would casually throw their arm over your shoulder in a way that was both possessive and non-committal.

I nearly slept with a bad boy that I hated passionately. I disliked everything about him and that powder keg got ignited one night and everyone just left the room and we tore each other's clothes off.

It was his best friend I wanted though and his best friend I dated for the rest of the year. His best friend who ruined the best years of my youth. Nay, the best friend I couldn't let go of, thereby wasting so much of the best years of my youth on him, his issues, and our tattered, unhealthy relationship.

Now?

Well, if DD and Bird are anything to go by, I still have something of a draw to the bad boys. To the ones who hang at the fringe and live just a little outside of what's expected.

But Smith wasn't. And Chad wasn't. And my other lovely boyfriends weren't. The one I nearly married wasn't.

So what *am* I attracted to now, was what I found myself thinking the other day.

And all I could put it down to was "a certain twinkle in the eye."

It's something like a mischievous smile. A smile that goes all the way to the eyes and crinkles just the corner of them. And if they were a caricature, there'd be a twinkle in the corner, and they might just wink at you.

It's a something that says I am good. I am happy. I will make you laugh. And smile. And I will make your insides churn and flutter.

A certain twinkle in the eye.

That's what I go for now.