I met "A" around the time WEBTV was invented. Aaaah, webtv. Perfect for people who lived in the middle of nowhere, had no local internet dial up access number and who had very little use for the computer except for trolling personal ads looking for a little action. Don't get me wrong-- webtv was also a great thing for people who lived in the middle of nowhere, had no local access number, had little computer smarts and just wanted to send photos of their grandkids to other people with photos of their grandkids, too. My dad even had webtv for a short period of time before he got local access and re-created himself as "Steve", a young buff postal worker looking for love.... but that's another story itself.
"A" lived in the middle of nowhere. He lived in the basement of his parents' house in the middle of nowhere. He got webtv because it was just like using a remote control and typewriter at the same time. Smart guy, that "A". He responded to a personal ad I had on YAHOO. The first e-mail I got from him was in ALL CAPS. Anyone who knows anything about e-mail etiquette knows that you don't write in ALL CAPS unless you are SHOUTING at the person you are writing. Not only did he write in ALL CAPS, he did not use any punctuation. It was like reading a TELEGRAM of some sort. I kept waiting to find the word "STOP" at the end of every line. I wrote him back and politely explained the "NO CAPS" rule to him. He wrote me back and thanked me... IN ALL CAPS. He then repeated everything he had written me in the previous e-mail--- in ALL CAPS and without any punctuation. My head hurt just trying to read his e-mail. I wrote him back and explained the NO CAPS rule again verbatim. He wrote me back and thanked me for my advice... yes, you guessed it, IN ALL CAPS, without punctuation. Then, he repeated everything from his previous emails in that same e-mail. I guess he didn't know how to delete out the stuff that wasn't necessary so we had this long line of something that looked like this:
>>> B THANKS FOR WRITING ME BACK DID YOU GET TO READ MY OTHER EMAIL
>>>A,
I have to tell you that your email was pretty hard to read. Just a little FYI-- it's not polite to write everything in capital letters. Some people think that is like shouting and pretty offensive. Also, you might want to separate your sentences with periods and question marks. It's very hard to read your e-mail.
B.
>>HEY I REALLY LIKED YOUR AD I LIVE 30 MILES FROM YOU AND I REALLY WOULD LIKE TO MEET YOU I WORK AS A TRUCK DRIVER I COME TO YOUR TOWN ONCE A WEEK WE COULD GET TOGETHER FOR A MOVIE DO YOU LIKE BOWLING DO YOU LIKE TO GO OUT DO YOU GO TO BARS WHAT DO YOU LOOK LIKE DO YOU LIVE ALONE HEY WRITE ME BACK
>>> B THANKS FOR WRITING ME BACK DID YOU GET TO READ MY OTHER EMAIL
>>>A,
I have to tell you that your email was pretty hard to read. Just a little FYI-- it's not polite to write everything in capital letters. Some people think that is like shouting and pretty offensive. Also, you might want to separate your sentences with periods and question marks. It's very hard to read your e-mail.
B.
>>HEY I REALLY LIKED YOUR AD I LIVE 30 MILES FROM YOU AND I REALLY WOULD LIKE TO MEET YOU I WORK AS A TRUCK DRIVER I COME TO YOUR TOWN ONCE A WEEK WE COULD GET TOGETHER FOR A MOVIE DO YOU LIKE BOWLING DO YOU LIKE TO GO OUT DO YOU GO TO BARS WHAT DO YOU LOOK LIKE DO YOU LIVE ALONE HEY WRITE ME BACK
>>> B THANKS FOR WRITING ME BACK DID YOU GET TO READ MY OTHER EMAIL
>>>A,
I have to tell you that your email was pretty hard to read. Just a little FYI-- it's not polite to write everything in capital letters. Some people think that is like shouting and pretty offensive. Also, you might want to separate your sentences with periods and question marks. It's very hard to read your e-mail.
B.
>>HEY I REALLY LIKED YOUR AD I LIVE 30 MILES FROM YOU AND I REALLY WOULD LIKE TO MEET YOU I WORK AS A TRUCK DRIVER I COME TO YOUR TOWN ONCE A WEEK WE COULD GET TOGETHER FOR A MOVIE DO YOU LIKE BOWLING DO YOU LIKE TO GO OUT DO YOU GO TO BARS WHAT DO YOU LOOK LIKE DO YOU LIVE ALONE HEY WRITE ME BACK
>>> B THANKS FOR WRITING ME BACK DID YOU GET TO READ MY OTHER EMAIL
>>>A,
I have to tell you that your email was pretty hard to read. Just a little FYI-- it's not polite to write everything in capital letters. Some people think that is like shouting and pretty offensive. Also, you might want to separate your sentences with periods and question marks. It's very hard to read your e-mail.
B.
>>HEY I REALLY LIKED YOUR AD I LIVE 30 MILES FROM YOU AND I REALLY WOULD LIKE TO MEET YOU I WORK AS A TRUCK DRIVER I COME TO YOUR TOWN ONCE A WEEK WE COULD GET TOGETHER FOR A MOVIE DO YOU LIKE BOWLING DO YOU LIKE TO GO OUT DO YOU GO TO BARS WHAT DO YOU LOOK LIKE DO YOU LIVE ALONE HEY WRITE ME BACK
-------------------------
This went on a few times and finally, I just told him that until he stopped sending me the same email over and over in ALL CAPS and without punctuation, I wasn't going to write him anymore. He wrote me back a different e-mail... IN ALL CAPS... telling me how much he really liked me and wanted to go out. Now, keep in mind, the only "communication" we had was him annoying me and me correcting him. I didn't answer any of his questions and he didn't share anything with me that wasn't already in his profile. I told him that we didn't even know each other. He wrote back (IN ALL CAPS) that he didn't have a problem with my "size." He wrote: MY LAST GIRLFRIEND WAS PRETTY BIG WE USED TO GO DANCING SHE DIDN'T LIKE THAT I LIVED WITH MY PARENTS SHE BROKE UP WITH ME
I just knew that it wasn't meant to be so I told him I had found someone else and wished him luck. He kept writing, though, bless his heart. After a couple of months of HEY HOW ARE THINGS WITH THAT GUY ARE YOU STILL SEEING HIM DO YOU WANT TO GO OUT WE CAN JUST BE FRIENDS I'M THINKING OF MOVING OUT OF MY PARENTS HOUSE type e-mails, he finally stopped writing.
I'm sure he was probably a really nice guy. I just was afraid that we'd meet and he'd YELL the whole date and I'd end up killing him.
No comments:
Post a Comment