Old Friends
I just got in touch with an old friend from school who I haven't seen in nearly 20 years. I found him on Friends Reunited, a British version of Classmates where you can search for people you went to school with. We've exchanged two e-mails and it's now at that critical stage where we have to determine if there's any fucking point to continuing. I've been down this road before - various classmates from the past, mostly from when I was about 16 or 17, have got in touch in recent years and it usually takes two e-mails before the correspondence drops dead.
My theory is that the first e-mail is all "Hey, how are you doing? Haven't seen you in 20 years!" and the second is "This is what I'm up to these days, how about you?" The third e-mail begs the question "What the fuck do we possibly have to talk about now?" I don't think it helps that, as a guy, I don't do much keeping in touch with people at the best of times. I mean, if I did, I wouldn't have gone 20 years without talking to these people, right? So round about the third e-mail you are confronted with the awkward reality that you just acquired a pen-pal with whom you have nothing in common (and with whom, in fact you never had much in common, beyond sharing a school). Plus you have a ton of other stuff to do and little appetite for meaningless chit-chat with strangers. So the e-mails stop.
The other possibility, of course, is that I'm such a boring wanker that people just stop writing to me.
Whatever the reason, there's no doubt that the age of correspondence is dead. People don't know what to write about; they get so out of the habit of writing at all that it's impossible to fill the e-mail with anything worth reading. I'm sure some people solve this problem by talking about themselves and their families, and generally pissing people off with how successful they've been. I'm sometimes tempted to make up something along the lines of:
"Wow, I've been busy since we last met! I'm the CEO of a major private equity firm and just bought my first personal jet. My wife is a twenty three year-old nyphomaniac who enjoys threeways with a girlfriend in the hot tub at one of our many mansions. And I have a twelve inch dick."
On the other hand, once you realize that the second e-mail will probably be the last, you could have a bit of fun:
"Well, I'm currently serving 25 to life for killing and dismembering my wife. It could have been the needle but my attorney plea bargained it down. I have a really nice cell, with a view of the exercise yard, and sometimes you can look out and see people getting shivved! I'm saving my cigarettes to buy my own prison bitch, so if you could send me some it would be much appreciated."
I don't know whether other people get more out of these contacts from the past - maybe I'm missing something. I'm going to give this latest one a chance since he was a really good mate back in the day, but I don't hold out much hope. It's hard work trying to be upbeat but not smug, humorous but not irritating, and neither lame nor dull.
I did think about sending him to this site, but that would practically guarantee the end of further communication. I guess I'd better go and work on my prison letter some more...
Copyright 2007 Edward Bison
My theory is that the first e-mail is all "Hey, how are you doing? Haven't seen you in 20 years!" and the second is "This is what I'm up to these days, how about you?" The third e-mail begs the question "What the fuck do we possibly have to talk about now?" I don't think it helps that, as a guy, I don't do much keeping in touch with people at the best of times. I mean, if I did, I wouldn't have gone 20 years without talking to these people, right? So round about the third e-mail you are confronted with the awkward reality that you just acquired a pen-pal with whom you have nothing in common (and with whom, in fact you never had much in common, beyond sharing a school). Plus you have a ton of other stuff to do and little appetite for meaningless chit-chat with strangers. So the e-mails stop.
The other possibility, of course, is that I'm such a boring wanker that people just stop writing to me.
Whatever the reason, there's no doubt that the age of correspondence is dead. People don't know what to write about; they get so out of the habit of writing at all that it's impossible to fill the e-mail with anything worth reading. I'm sure some people solve this problem by talking about themselves and their families, and generally pissing people off with how successful they've been. I'm sometimes tempted to make up something along the lines of:
"Wow, I've been busy since we last met! I'm the CEO of a major private equity firm and just bought my first personal jet. My wife is a twenty three year-old nyphomaniac who enjoys threeways with a girlfriend in the hot tub at one of our many mansions. And I have a twelve inch dick."
On the other hand, once you realize that the second e-mail will probably be the last, you could have a bit of fun:
"Well, I'm currently serving 25 to life for killing and dismembering my wife. It could have been the needle but my attorney plea bargained it down. I have a really nice cell, with a view of the exercise yard, and sometimes you can look out and see people getting shivved! I'm saving my cigarettes to buy my own prison bitch, so if you could send me some it would be much appreciated."
I don't know whether other people get more out of these contacts from the past - maybe I'm missing something. I'm going to give this latest one a chance since he was a really good mate back in the day, but I don't hold out much hope. It's hard work trying to be upbeat but not smug, humorous but not irritating, and neither lame nor dull.
I did think about sending him to this site, but that would practically guarantee the end of further communication. I guess I'd better go and work on my prison letter some more...
Copyright 2007 Edward Bison
posted by Mr Bison at
7:25 PM
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