Tom, I’ll be honest. I find your posting style very weird. You dole out incomplete pieces of a story, bait people into commenting, then lambast them for offering perspective based on incomplete information. You also hint at other things happening that would give a clearer picture, but force people to ask rather than just being open and sharing it all. Why is that? The attitude I get from you is that we have to prove that we’re worthy of reading your story and participating in this thread. It comes off extremely entitled.
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I tried to be as empathetic as possible. I first wrote her a short note, handwritten on an embossed card, that said it appears we had both undergone significant life transitions recently (I saw the obit for her husband) and would she be interested in reconnecting? I ended the note saying, if she found this letter to be unwelcome, just let me know by email or USPS and I would not reach out again.
I think this demonstrates again that you don’t fully understand empathy. Going purely off the information you shared in that paragraph, your actions just seem self-serving. I don’t actually see any empathy here. Empathy would have been sending the card with the sole purpose of offering sincere condolences for her loss, NOT talking about yourself with the goal of rekindling your romantic connection. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you did address her husband’s passing and just didn’t mention it here, because it’d be pretty damn cold if you didn’t. Maybe you sent flowers along with the card too, since you’re such a kind person? I’d be interested if you were willing to clarify?
OK, Scout, I'll continue this. I was reluctant to but I will.
I noted early on that most people do not respond to long posts. So while I don't write teaser posts per se, i have assumed that if questions arise from a 3-para post people will ask for clarification. As it is, I still write lots of long posts, but if I told full stories the would be much longer and no one would read them. I don't call that wierd, by the way. I'm just trying to understand what works.
The initial outreach to Sally was a short notecard. Brief. We hadn't spoken in 32 years, and I did offer my condolences, although it had been over a year since her husband died. We began our active communication via email the following week. It was mostly just chatty, about lives and vacations and careers and children. She apologized for my marriage having ended as well. We didn't really break the ice until our dinner a month after the written connection.
And you assumed that I asked to rekindle the romance in the first note. I did not. I just asked how she was, offered condolences for her husband having died the prior year, and wondered whether she would like to get together, and said it would be good to reconnect. Then my postscript that if the note was unwelcome, to let me know.
Perhaps Sally is the best judge of how things worked, by the way, and whether there was enough empathy and sincerity. She opened the note, saw my name embossed across the top, and immediately got both nervous and excited. We had both still had a candle burning for each other, even after all those years! To her it was the most thrilling note she had received in a long time. For the following month, we both admitted that we each awaited each new email with baited breath. It was a real reconnection of sundered hearts.
Now my commentary. I still think youre looking for reasons to criticize, Scout. I have to be honest here. Your words seeth disdain. If you can't see this, maybe you need to look inside your heart more carefully at your motives. Certainly the prior comment did. Or, maybe it is your practice to shoot from the hip, and anger people, with reflexive words. Either way, I found that earlier comment offensive. If such is to be your style it might be best if you bowed out from particpating in my threads.
[Written in a hurry, on an airplane and the doors are closing.]
