“Next time your sweetie calls you “Dear”
Maybe you should wonder,
Are they just trying to avoid a social blunder.
I’m not trying to make trouble, monogamy is grand,
But if it’s not your style better follow my plan
And call him
Sweeheart, Babylove
Angle face, Turtledove,
Honey pie, Sugar lamb,
Lover boy, Superman
Avoid any possible embarrassment or blame
Don’t ever call your sweetheart by his name.”
From: Christine Lavin’s “Don’t Ever Call Your Sweetheart By His Name”
So I’m flipping through my various email and social networking sites and find I have a message from someone name “Jeff” on my MySpace page. That was odd, as I don’t generally log into my MySpace account more than one or two times a month. I only have it so I can monitor my son’s rock band’s account. I’ve had no messages on that account since I first set it up.
Curious as who this could be – one of my many cousins, someone I’d gone to school with, an old friend of a friend – I log in to find a rather passionate love letter and plea for friendship from a stranger. Oh, there was nothing overtly offensive in his message but I had a few issues with it. And so I wrote a reply to this passionate stranger.
Dear “Jeff”:
I’m sorry I must deny your friend request on MySpace. I trust your feelings will be safe from this rejection, as it must be only one from the hundreds of friend invites you invariably have sent out with your love letter to females on MySpace.
However, I did have a few comments and suggestions about your style of soliciting women (assuming you actually WANT some to respond to your friend requests). I hope you will find them useful.
- 1)Don’t use a picture of a male model who is 20 years younger than your stated age as your profile picture. He is lovely but really it just raises the suspicion that you must be a real dog yourself.
- 2)Referring to the woman you are trying to approach as “Pretty Angel,” subsequently shortened to “pretty” for the five more times you refer to her is not going to win you any brownie points. Is this REALLY how you speak to women? If so, I’m not surprised by your current relationship status.
- 3)While it may seem as a positive trait that you are single and have “never been married,” at your stated age that actually raises a lot of warning bells. Here you are 42 years old, never married, no children. Are you afraid of commitment? Here’s a hint: women like me would far prefer to take their chances with a divorced man who has a child or two of his own. At least he has taken some risks and made a few mistakes along the way … in other words: he would be human
- 4)“over” is not spelled “overb” – just a pet peeve of mine – proofread your work and don’t use text-talk in a potential love letter (“you” is not “u”, USA and UK should be capitalized, “your” is not “ur” and so on). You also write one incredibly long run-on sentence. And actually a closer analysis of your writing would suggest that you are not an English as a first language speaker. What is your first language? I’m surprised that you are such a successful contractor in the UK when you writing is so poor – there is one spot left in my 4th year business writing course this fall. You might consider taking it.
- 5)Approaching women whose status is clearly marked “married” can be dangerous business. Married is married. At least from where I stand.
- 6)Why do you feel the need to go on and on about your work as a contractor building hospitals (is there good money in that, I rather doubt it in Canada – skyscrapers in Manhattan would be more impressive). Of course, this presupposes that the woman you were looking for was actually motivated merely by status and earning capacity.
- 7)Why is your hotmail address jeff1978? Of course you may not use your birth date in your email alias, I’m just curious what happened when you were 11 years old that made you include the year in your email?
Just some tips for for future endeavours. Best of luck!
GG
