I have spent two years trying to identify what I am missing,
What quality in him the rest of the room keeps consistently kissing,
He is charming in the way that leaves me with a specific doubt,
A warmth I cannot fully locate the mechanism of, throughout.
Everyone I know considers him a genuinely great guy,
A consensus so complete that I have had to wonder why
My reading of his affect lands somewhere adjacent to suspicious,
While everyone around me finds the man simply delicious.
The person everyone likes except me, I carry my doubt,
I have tried to find the entry point but cannot figure it out,
Maybe he is exactly what they say and I am the issue here,
The person everyone likes except me, the data is clear.
I have examined my reaction with as much honesty as I can,
I have searched for projection, for some wound behind my scan,
For the thing in him that triggers something specific in my past,
A pattern-match from someone else I have not fully surpassed.
I haven’t found it, which is either good news or bad,
Good news: there is no buried wound to make me feel glad,
Bad news: my read might just be wrong in this specific case,
And I am carrying unnecessary doubt about a perfectly fine face.
I have arrived at a position that is somewhat uncomfortable to hold:
I am going to extend the same credit as everyone else enrolled
Until and unless the evidence accumulates to something more,
And in the meantime keep my skepticism away from the door.
Maybe he is great and I have a calibration off somewhere,
Maybe everyone I trust has independently found something there,
Or maybe they are all missing the same thing simultaneously,
But the votes are in and I am the only one who cannot see.