the female gaze

It struck me today, around 2 pm in the afternoon when I was crossing the bus stop near my house. There was a girl, and her piercing gaze drew my attention. Not just once or twice, but thrice in that short span of about eight seconds that it took for me to walk past her.

I've often felt the gaze of both men and women but never paid much attention to it. In my adult life I've noticed that its mostly the gaze of curiosity. Maybe because I have short hair, I dress a little differently and today I had really colourful socks on!

The letching gaze has always annoyed me but I'm almost always lost in a world of my own, especially when I'm alone, and so it doesn't bother me too much. Today, I managed to decipher a third kind of gaze and that is the one that I shall dedicate this blog entry to.

Ever wondered what the gaydar is all about? People from all sexual identities have wondered about this, not just gay people or not just straight people. It derives itself from the word Radar, which in the little information I remember from high school physics is the frequency that a bat can direct in the darkness, and if it comes back there's an object and if it doesn't there never was an object in the first place - and there's freedom, for the bat, to fly fly fly away. Anyhow, so Gaydar, in my opinion is just like that. But its not some ultra super sonic sound that you can throw - and if I say now that its the vibe I know I'm not helping, so it's all that is not communicated directly. A whole lot of it is body language. It's also what you don't say, or the things that you only hint at. So all these things form what you direct towards a person. Maybe you don't do it consciously, maybe it happens maybe its a part of your core human ness, and when you feel like its reciprocated (for anyone of any gender, directing it at any gender) - that's the gaydar!

The female gaze reminded me of this, because today the way that girl looked at me was not mere curiosity, and it was definitely not her letching at me.
So what was it?