Don't Let me be Misunderstood
Writing for me had always been easy. As I child I enjoyed writing long letters to my grandmother who lived in San Diego, CA. I remember Francis, Gigi and I on the living room floor in front of the piano creating our ‘scribbles’ for Lola. I do not remember if Francis or Gigi wrote or drew. But I know that was how I discovered the joy of writing down my thoughts and sharing them with someone.
In the age of the internet, I find myself in touch with so many people – old boyfriends, previous workmates, relatives, friends from way back, and even people who were not really that close to me but somehow during email exchanges developed a certain affinity with. I belong to 3 e-groups (one with friends from grade school and two from previous companies I worked for) and so my Yahoo mailbox averages a deluge of emails daily. And this doesn’t include the spam and the junk mail. It’s a good thing that Yahoo had just recently increased the email storage of free subscribers to 100 MB.
I write as I speak. If you knew me and how I managed regular conversation you will attest to that. My laughter is exactly how I would put it into words, too: mwahahaha! I try not to dwell too much on how the email is composed. I dispose of all the grammatical rules and go by what I feel will be comfortable for my reader to understand my message. And my messages are often benign and light. Life in general, insights, my rants and raves and the little sprinkling of drama that comes up with those with whom I may have shared something deeper and at times, profound.
It is a not always a good thing, even on a strictly friendly email exchange I realized that it is dangerous to let your guards down and be comfortable with words and emotions played online. It could be misinterpreted and the receiver might be misled to believe that you have other interests or agenda. I was a victim to this.
My email friend was someone I worked with who was not really very close to me when he was still in New York. It was the usual 'hi’ and ‘hello’ and the innocuous flirty exchanges whenever the playfulness seemed appropriate. If you knew me you’d also agree that flirting to me comes as easily as breathing.
When he left the country and returned home, we resumed a comfortable exchange that included sharing some very personal unraveling. We exchanged a lot of pictures (he of his travels and I sent him mostly pictures of parties with friends we used to work with).
The exchanges became regular which initially were quite friendly and then later transgressing to becoming more intimate. If it made me feel uncomfortable I took with a grain of salt and shrugged off the uneasiness as my own fault for being too uptight and blamed the Catholic upbringing. Until later he sent me an email that literally made me fall of my chair.
“I think I should talk to you frankly because I think there is a bit of confusion…Please do not mix up a friendship with something else, it is not my intention and I hope you understand that…”
He knows I have a boyfriend. I have shared with him my tirades about my imperfect perfect relationship but I have never faltered in underlining the fact that despite its imperfections, I am comfortable and happy with what I have. This is with the premise that there are worse soap-opera situations that prevail in the romantic scenario category.
The email he had sent me had short circuited me and my once-eloquent capability to compose emails with comfortable ease and informality. The consecutive emails I received from friends were left unanswered for days. I couldn’t contemplate how to reply to them with fear of sending out a wrong impression or message.
In response to the email, in panic I had typed a lot of idiotic nonsense in the hope to recapitulate my friendly intentions and then had hit the send button to regret it almost the immediate second the draft flew into cyber space. As you very well know, trying to salvage a shattered ego, explain your innocent intentions and attempting to be polite do not go get diluted very well in a four paragraph email typed in haste.
I had no one else to confide to. He was a close friend of everyone else in my group. Eventually when the drama had become too much I decided to tell my boyfriend and had expected a backlash. He was understanding and had reminded me that some men will put malice to my actions. It didn’t even have to be sweet, flirty or caring. If a man who is not used to getting the kind of attention I give my friends suddenly finds himself in the midst of that doting, he may misinterpret it for anything else other than friendly intentions.
And then in his usual acerbic kind of humor, he tried to cheer me up: …”at least now you can say you’ve had it all. You just got rejected by someone you weren’t even interested on…”
I have resumed with my emails with the other friends. Yesterday he emailed me back after almost a 3 week break and apologized for his 'weird behavior' and opened the idea again of resuming the exchanges. I had tried to compose a reply several times during the day. My fingers on the keyboard would freeze, unable to find the words to respond. It is as though my brain draws blanks whenever I am reminded of that message he had sent to me. Despite the prodding to 'move on' and 'get over it' I had been chanting to myself over and over, I just couldn't move forward.
Exactly how far can you be affable with a person of the opposite sex without stepping beyond the borders of friendship?
"I'm just a soul whose intentions are good
Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood..."
Elvis Costelo
In the age of the internet, I find myself in touch with so many people – old boyfriends, previous workmates, relatives, friends from way back, and even people who were not really that close to me but somehow during email exchanges developed a certain affinity with. I belong to 3 e-groups (one with friends from grade school and two from previous companies I worked for) and so my Yahoo mailbox averages a deluge of emails daily. And this doesn’t include the spam and the junk mail. It’s a good thing that Yahoo had just recently increased the email storage of free subscribers to 100 MB.
I write as I speak. If you knew me and how I managed regular conversation you will attest to that. My laughter is exactly how I would put it into words, too: mwahahaha! I try not to dwell too much on how the email is composed. I dispose of all the grammatical rules and go by what I feel will be comfortable for my reader to understand my message. And my messages are often benign and light. Life in general, insights, my rants and raves and the little sprinkling of drama that comes up with those with whom I may have shared something deeper and at times, profound.
It is a not always a good thing, even on a strictly friendly email exchange I realized that it is dangerous to let your guards down and be comfortable with words and emotions played online. It could be misinterpreted and the receiver might be misled to believe that you have other interests or agenda. I was a victim to this.
My email friend was someone I worked with who was not really very close to me when he was still in New York. It was the usual 'hi’ and ‘hello’ and the innocuous flirty exchanges whenever the playfulness seemed appropriate. If you knew me you’d also agree that flirting to me comes as easily as breathing.
When he left the country and returned home, we resumed a comfortable exchange that included sharing some very personal unraveling. We exchanged a lot of pictures (he of his travels and I sent him mostly pictures of parties with friends we used to work with).
The exchanges became regular which initially were quite friendly and then later transgressing to becoming more intimate. If it made me feel uncomfortable I took with a grain of salt and shrugged off the uneasiness as my own fault for being too uptight and blamed the Catholic upbringing. Until later he sent me an email that literally made me fall of my chair.
“I think I should talk to you frankly because I think there is a bit of confusion…Please do not mix up a friendship with something else, it is not my intention and I hope you understand that…”
He knows I have a boyfriend. I have shared with him my tirades about my imperfect perfect relationship but I have never faltered in underlining the fact that despite its imperfections, I am comfortable and happy with what I have. This is with the premise that there are worse soap-opera situations that prevail in the romantic scenario category.
The email he had sent me had short circuited me and my once-eloquent capability to compose emails with comfortable ease and informality. The consecutive emails I received from friends were left unanswered for days. I couldn’t contemplate how to reply to them with fear of sending out a wrong impression or message.
In response to the email, in panic I had typed a lot of idiotic nonsense in the hope to recapitulate my friendly intentions and then had hit the send button to regret it almost the immediate second the draft flew into cyber space. As you very well know, trying to salvage a shattered ego, explain your innocent intentions and attempting to be polite do not go get diluted very well in a four paragraph email typed in haste.
I had no one else to confide to. He was a close friend of everyone else in my group. Eventually when the drama had become too much I decided to tell my boyfriend and had expected a backlash. He was understanding and had reminded me that some men will put malice to my actions. It didn’t even have to be sweet, flirty or caring. If a man who is not used to getting the kind of attention I give my friends suddenly finds himself in the midst of that doting, he may misinterpret it for anything else other than friendly intentions.
And then in his usual acerbic kind of humor, he tried to cheer me up: …”at least now you can say you’ve had it all. You just got rejected by someone you weren’t even interested on…”
I have resumed with my emails with the other friends. Yesterday he emailed me back after almost a 3 week break and apologized for his 'weird behavior' and opened the idea again of resuming the exchanges. I had tried to compose a reply several times during the day. My fingers on the keyboard would freeze, unable to find the words to respond. It is as though my brain draws blanks whenever I am reminded of that message he had sent to me. Despite the prodding to 'move on' and 'get over it' I had been chanting to myself over and over, I just couldn't move forward.
Exactly how far can you be affable with a person of the opposite sex without stepping beyond the borders of friendship?
"I'm just a soul whose intentions are good
Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood..."
Elvis Costelo