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Wednesday, Jul. 16, 2003 - 7:21 p.m. WHAT THE HELL "Just Friends" Dear *****:
First, I ask that you not misinterpret this message. This is not a request for any furtherance of a relationship, nor is it a reflection of my inability to give something up that simply will not work. I am simply following up on my experience with you in order to gain feedback so that I can better myself in future relationships. Second, I hope that you have handled the information I shared with you on my trip with respect and compassion. I shared with you information about myself that few people know and that could be very damaging to me if it fell in the wrong hands. Lastly, I want to extend my hand in friendship, so that I might create another node in a budding social network I am working so hard to build.
If you recall, at one point you wanted to know who it was that I had spoken about you to, and I did not give you an answer. In fact, this person was one of the "experts" helping me confront my problems resulting from my history. Needless to say, in my opinion, I received bad advice from him when he said that I should go to New York to visit you. He should have advised that I just bring you to dinner and a movie when you got back to New Orleans. I am currently in the process of leaving him and going with someone else, a female "expert," who will better help me to deal with the challenges of meeting a woman's needs in a relationship. However, I believe you too can assist in my relationship maturity by offering feedback and criticism on how I handled our time we spent together.
It may be difficult for you to understand, but I would compare my date with you on July 4th to what it is like for junior-high school boy going to his first dance. For reasons I hope you can understand, I was very tentative about showing much affection toward you and regret it painfully. I know you had made some subtle advances toward me that I may have appeared to have avoided and ignored. Rest assured, I was aware of everything. Due to my inexperience, I was just very nervous and uncomfortable.
My nervousness and discomfort continued all the way through Saturday causing you to become completely bored with me. Frankly, I do not blame you for feeling that way. You were having to tour New York City for the third weekend in a row and were stuck with a guy who would hardly speak to you, much less offer you the affection you desired. Either way, I am mostly to blame for the collapse that happened between us, and want to make sure that I not make the same mistakes again.
If you feel awkward answering this e-mail, please erase it and forget about it. Otherwise, I would like you to give me very specific details as to all the things I did to slowly wither away what we had going. For instance, you turned your cheek to me before you left on the train the first night, and turned it again, expecting a real kiss, with my responding obliviously. Another example would be how I paid for your trip on the double-decker bus against your wishes. I am doing my best to comb out all of the fine details of what I did wrong, so that I can learn from it and catch up in my "relationship maturity" as soon as possible, but I know there had to be other things that happened that I cannot readily recall. I plan to review this information with my "experts" so that I can quickly eliminate any bad habits that linger from my history. Your assistance and complete honesty would be greatly appreciated.
Incidentally, I enjoyably spent the rest of my time in New York with my cousin and we have become much closer as a result. She wanted me to thank you for the ticket to Beauty in the Beast. The show, as well as the seats, were awesome.
Please bare in mind, this is only a friendly e-mail, and I have no intentions of asking to date you again. I have since logically come to understand the many differences we have between us. No offense intended, but our experience together does not lead me to believe that we are "soul mates." I am, however, very tolerant and respectful of other people's differences. I also ask that you not share this e-mail with people that cannot be trusted.
Your friend, Experiment |