The Vine: April 3, 2001
I’d just like to add my two cents, because I think I know what she’s talking about (well, maybe not, but I’d like to say it anyway).
Getting serious with somebody narrows down the possibilities, and I mean the possibilities for who you get to be, not for who you get to be with. You start taking the other person into consideration when you think about your future, and suddenly you realize that those daydreams of touring around the country with your rock band or quitting your job to go backpacking in Nepal for a year are really, really never going to come true because you are saving up your money to buy a house with your sweetie.
Anyway, commitment means you have to say goodbye to some of your fantasies, and sometimes that’s a little depressing, even if what you’re giving them up for is something really good.
At least I find that to be true.
TR
Dear TR,
That’s true. Depressing, but true.
I got the feeling from the letter that Utterly Confused is having her doubts about the specific guy, not about settling down with a guy generally, but I can’t really point to why I get that feeling.
Sars —
I hate to say it, but I noticed that “Utterly Confused” may have the dreaded “there’s something missing = sexual problems” syndrome. I noticed that she went out of her way to tell us how wonderful this guy is: “I love him dearly, he has a great personality, sense of humor, all that sort of stuff, he loves me too, and about the only thing married couples seem to have on us is a joint account.”
Maybe it’s just me, but normally in this type of letter I’d expect to see at least a reference to great/good sex. No reference at all says something to me; it says the sex is neither great nor good.
Sorry to bring up what, I’m sure, is a painful subject by now, but that’s the way I see it. And I don’t really even believe that “there’s something missing” always means “the sex sucks.”
Petey
Dear Petey,
I’d hate to reopen the Hoffa can of worms, but you might have a point. It’s possible that the bloom is off the rose in the relationship and Utterly Confused doesn’t know where to go with that.
Sarah:
As a popular webmaster, how can you tell the difference between people who write with legitimate questions and those (men) who seem to have written in just because you have a female name?
I ask because I’m just now starting to get quite a few emails from strangers through my website, and I’m still new enough to feel bad if I don’t respond to each letter.
However, lately I’ve gotten a few like the one attached that seem to have less to do with the topic of my website and more to do with the online equivalent of being asked my sign in a bar.
I actually have a website to send to him that would answer all his questions, but I have a feeling that’s not what he wants. Right now I’m leaning towards sending a polite but terse reply with a link to the other webpage, but I don’t want to risk him thinking that I am “someone to talk to.” Call me a bitch, but spelling and grammar count to me, and I’m way past falling for lines like that in a bar.
Am I rude to not reply? Am I overreacting? What would you do with this email?
Thanks,
No One’s Webmistress
Dear No One’s,
For the edification of my other readers, here’s the email in question:
i was sitting infront of my computer here in the city of Detroit , Michigan in the united states, and i was getting tired of the long winter we are having , it was 48 degrees fahrenheit today and i got to wondering what it would be like don in antartica, i was wondering do people live there, what language do they speak are there any children there , do they have cars,what the capitol was,and since i am a plumber i was wondering what kind of plumbing system is used in such a cold evironment. so i tohught i would look up antartica on the internet and see wht i could find and i could find someone to talk to an lo and behold here we are, hope to hear from you soon. i apologize for my poor typing abilities and grammer i suppose i should have paid more attention in school
The guy’s bored, and probably drunk. What he’s written has almost nothing to do with you. If you think you have to respond, a cheerily neutral “glad you like the site!” should do it, but you shouldn’t feel bad about deleting it. A correspondence with this guy isn’t going to go anywhere.
It’s one thing to respond to fan mail — I try to answer all of mine, even if it’s just a quick “thanks for reading” — but the plumber is incoherent, stupid (“do they have cars”? Yeah, I worked on a TV project on Antarctica once, so I’m more informed than most, but…hello. It’s ANTARCTICA), and looking for love in all the wrong places. Hit “delete.”
Tags: boys (and girls) etiquette
