It happens without ceremony.
No introduction.
No moment I can point to and say, this is where it changed.
Just a shift subtle enough that I almost miss it like air moving in a room I've been sitting in too long.
I am used to being unnoticed in crowds.
Not invisible, exactly just unclaimed by attention.
People register me the way they register furniture:
present, useful, easily overlooked.
So when I feel it that steady awareness
it takes me a moment to recognise what it is.
Someone is paying attention.
I notice them the way I notice everything at first:
in fragments.
The pause before they speak, as if words matter.
The way their gaze doesn't skim past me when conversation moves on.
How they listen not to respond, but to hold what's been said long enough for it to settle.
Most people are in a hurry.
They collect enough information to feel included and move forward.
This feels slower.
We exist in the same spaces for a while before we speak properly.
Shared rooms.
Overlapping routines.
Familiarity building without demand.
When we do speak, it's unremarkable and somehow, that makes it extraordinary.
No performance.
No curiosity sharpened into interrogation.
Just presence
There is an ease in them that doesn't ask me to become more palatable.
They don't rush to fill silence when it stretches thin.
They let it breathe, like silence is not something to fear.
That alone disarms me.
I find myself offering small truths I usually keep folded away nothing that could be used against me, just pieces of myself released without rehearsal.
They don't flinch.
They don't rush to reassure or correct.
They don't try to translate my words into something easier to digest.
They simply hold them carefully as if they understand that honesty is fragile not because it is weak,but because it is rare.
I don't notice when anticipation sets in.
Only that the room feels slightly off when they're not there.
Only that my attention drifts more easily in their direction than I intend.
This unsettles me
I have built my life on observation, not participation.
On understanding others before allowing myself to be understood.
Being seen
even gently
feels like standing in unfamiliar light.
There is no claim made.
No promise offered.
Just the steady sense that someone is learning my shape without trying to name it.
And for the first time,
I wonder what it would be like
to loosen my grip on everything I carry
and place a small part of it in someone else's hands.