Write back

I think you may recall this fellow. It took me a couple of days to figure out how to respond to him. You may ask why I wanted to respond at all and that's a good question. It was just niggling at the back of my mind--it wasn't important, but it was still there. I wrote the response the day before Mark "resigned" and I wasn't sure about sending it. But, after getting brushed off by Mark, I did. Maybe, since I knew I wouldn't write to Mark I wanted to give someone a piece of my mind. That’s bad! (By the way, I haven't written to Mark or been tempted to write.)

This was my carefully considered reply to E.:

E.,

I've been trying to figure out how to respond to your message. My first reaction was "he's got to be kidding." This is how I see it: we were chatting along quite nicely (I thought), I wrote you an email (at your request, as I recall), and I never heard from you again. Correction--I heard from you four weeks later. Four weeks. It's a long time to take to answer a message. It really would have made more sense if I'd never heard from you again. And, if you were going to take four weeks to respond to the suggestion of having coffee, well, I suppose I would like an actual explanation.

Of course, you owe me nothing, not even a response to this message. I was tempted to wait four weeks to answer, but I just don't have that kind of patience.

I'm not sure it's possible to get on the right foot here, but you are welcome to try and convince me--but if you don't feel like it, I'll understand.

~jamy

Within two days (speed demon!) he answered:

Sorry for the delay. I travel often for work and just got behind on email and other things. It was not intended as it was taken and I apologize if I caused any insults. Anyway, I wish you good luck. Thanks, E.

A few things:

1. I got an apology from someone. I hope I'm satisfied!
2. Why didn't he just say this stuff in the first place? If he'd sent these three lines instead of the original two lines he might have actually have gotten a friendly response from me.
3. I don't plan to write him back. "I wish you good luck" seems to close the door on this one.
4. Let the non-dating commence!

Grateful for: non-crazy responses to emails.

PS I'm not so sick anymore and back at work.