I met someone today who looks exactly like the male faces I used to draw in the margins of my notebook paper in middle school. These faces all had wide eyes, sparse lashes, button noses, very thick but perfectly groomed eyebrows, cheekbones to get lost in, expressive lips, and dark hair with widows' peaks.

I think I used to draw them because I figured if I knew what my 'perfect man' looked like, I'd be more likely to notice when he walked by. As opposed, that is, to noticing what I usually noticed, which was precisely nothing - well, except for the words on the pages in books, that is.

Well, 13 year old me, he walked by today. And I noticed. And I didn't, contrary to your likely expectations, fall all over myself, turn bright red, and write him secret Valentines notes to stick in his locker. I merely appraised him, thought, "hmm, he looks exactly like those faces I used to draw!" and went on to think some more about how different my middle school tastes were to what they are now.

That's not entirely true. I thought other things, like how precisely and delicately his face was constructed, and how strange it was that something that symmetrical existed in nature. I thought about how I would like to trace his face with a pencil, or a fingertip. His eyes were the categorical definition of hazel; how curious it was that even though I used to draw my faces in penciled graphite and white, his color of hazel was exactly how I had pictured it then.