All the Mail I Never Sent

Spoilers

In the beginning we were kids.

Your mate fancied my mate, you and I were just along for the ride.

What a ride it was. Three years later we definitely weren’t kids anymore.

How often does someone’s first love turn out to be their last?

With you I learnt so much - about life, love, myself, my sexuality. I wouldn’t have wanted to learn that stuff with anyone else.

I don’t know if you have read The Amber Spyglass - sorry if I spoil it for you.

At the end the two heroes - love’s young dream - part company, knowing that it will be forever.

In my (overly-romantic) mind this symbolised every first love; complete because the young characters pour themselves into it in a way only kids can, perfect because they’re experiencing it all for the first time.

It seemed like any moment beyond that point would eat into the completeness, tarnish the perfection, so they sacrificed their love in order to preserve it.

I sobbed when I read the end of that book, for you and lost lives and happy memories.

Wherein Swearing Happens

For fuck’s sake, if you are claiming to be an author, and contacting me in that capacity, please try and string a bloody buggering sentence together and for the love of motherfucking god, how hard is it to run a cunting spell check? More importantly, never, ever sign an email to a stranger “With bestest wishes” unless you hope to convey that you are 12 years old, a complete fucktard, or both.

Yours oh so sincerely,

L

This Post May Contain Criticism

Hi A—

My responses are attached.

I know it is unsolicited, although hopefully constructive, but I have a little criticism. Some of the questions in the survey contain operator bias, which might skew your results. Also, your covering mail was quite confusing.

It would have been good to know straight up how my data were to be used, ie, that they were going into a book (this is quite different to going into a university thesis, for example), followed by information on how the book is to be published, and who the expected readership is.

It would also be good to know who you are doing the research for, and possibly how it is being funded.

I hope this doesn’t sound snarky or unpleasant - it is very difficult to judge people’s tone online, especially if you don’t know them.

Many thanks,

L—

All the Mail I Never Sent

The Draft Messages folder in your mail client has a wonderful ability to save you from embarassing yourself.  Saving a message and then coming back to it the next day is the best way to check whether you really meant to be quite that forceful, laid-back, flirtatious, or whatever.

If you think better of hitting “Send,” what you’re left with is messages that Went Unsaid.  This site is a place to post these emails (suitably anonymised, of course) to share your potential embarrassment with the world.  Maybe there was something you wish you’d said later that’s still kicking around your inbox, waiting for an airing.  Maybe there’s something you’re really glad you didn’t send, but is still there because you just never got round to dealing with it.

If that describes anything you’ve got (that you wrote, please - no airing of other peoples’ dirty laundry here), post it here.  I can’t see any identifying information that you don’t give me; I don’t get email addresses or anything like that unless you give it to me, so be ruthless. I’ll publish your mail in as complete a form as I can, so don’t rely on me to catch anything you leave in there!

Needless to say, this idea owes a lot to the wonderful PostSecret.  See it if you haven’t already.  You owe it to yourself.