Note: I found this letter, from roughly twenty years ago. It’s either half-finished or half-started, I’m not sure which. Important parts are missing, like who I was writing to. In place of a name, and with no disrespect intended, I’ll use X. That I hadn’t initiated the correspondence, but rather was responding in kind, is clear from the opening lines. It’s impossible to reconstruct my thoughts from so long ago, but since I wrote them down, they must have meant something to me at the time. Occasionally, I have taken the liberty of adding new text in order to complete a sentence or to develop an idea or to insert a perspective from the future. I have placed this text [highlighted, within brackets]. Some portions of the half-finished/half-started letter are admittedly delicate. These I have expunged. Deleted text is marked by […]. Otherwise, the original remains more or less intact.
Dear [X],
I’m disappointed. Not in you or your reply, but rather in myself, for not even knowing my own vibes. They seem self-evident to you, but to me … [well, not so much.]
I like what you [had] to say about deserts and middles and glasses. [I don’t know how these might be connected, but] as far as the [proverbial] glass goes, you are the first person I’ve come across who has been able to put forth a sound argument for seeing it as half-full. [Too bad I can’t remember anymore what your reasoning was.]
As for my vibes, well, I’m also not aware of any oozing. [And anyway, oozing strikes me as an odd word to use when talking about vibes. I wonder, did I perhaps misread your statement? Did you by any chance mean boozing?] It’s possible, in fact extremely likely, given the number of people on this planet, that there could be someone who fits the bill. […] [But] I’m not sure I’m willing to pay that bill. […] I was pretty devastated by the whole thing […] [and] I simply don’t feel like going through any of that getting to know you, getting to know all about you stuff […]. [Please, don’t talk to me anymore about dating services.] I trust dating services even less than I trust dates. […] and […] have carried me through the low times, and now (but only recently, having finally escaped from the depression, at least for the time being), I fill my life with […] and […]. […] I figure I will strike while the iron is hot.
[By the time you read this, the iron will not only have cooled, many times over again, but I seem to have misplaced it altogether. And as for my striking, … well, these things are perhaps best left for another time.]
[With vague but fond memories,]
[Yours truly]
