So I was preparing a lovely witty post on When Good Friendships Go Bad when I received notification of 17 new emails in one of my emailboxes. 17, all at once? Hmm. I had to go check that out. I went over to my Outlook and noticed in my folder titled "Personal" there were 17 unread items. Now I'm super-duper anal about my folders, I catalog my emails because I have (at last count) eight different accounts – long story, moving on. The "Personal" folder is reserved for past, current and future (potential) SOs. So I wondered who had that much to say.
Clicking on the folder, I noticed they were all from the same person. We'll call him Aaron. Aaron is a gentleman I met at a bookstore a few years back right after the super-bad break up with Gene. We had drinks once. He is good-looking, employed, intelligent. However, I was not in a mind to have a serious relationship at the time and he made it clear he was only interested in a relationship that was going somewhere well beyond frivolous. Since then he has touched base a few times but our timing was always just a little bit off. I don't know - for whatever reason I didn't make him a priority and he didn't really pursue it.
Fast forward to tonight and imagine my surprise when I see emails all with the same title, "Michele – let's do this." Nice hook. I clicked on open. It read, "We've been dancing around each other for close to three years. Can we at least get some coffee? Call me at 214-555-5555. I believe I've got next."
And he sent the same thing 16 more times. (Maybe a server glitch?) I'm a bit nonplussed. I'm somewhat intrigued and sincerely wary. And of course, now I have to go digging through my archives to see what he has sent before. Why now, what's the urgency and why not just call? So far, I haven't responded. I'm going to marinate on that for the evening. On the one hand, I usually grant everyone interesting the time it takes to sip a white caramel mocha. On the other hand, if I did not find him attention worthy in the past – what's changed?
Anyway, since the other post was taking forever to write (and my pillow is calling me), I decided this is a good day to hit ya'll with a short, open discussion. So I'm turning this one over to you. Thoughts? What do you think of the email? What would you do next? And though he's not really begging, has anybody found that begging works for a man? Or a woman? Conversely does the hang around theory work for either sex? [In case you're unaware, the hang around theory involves staying involved in a person's life until one day they look around and say – okay, you're it] Step on up and share.