So here's what the letter said:
Laura--I refuse to call you Laurie,
I know that to you I am just a guy at work, but I have to tell you: I am in Love With You. I know. This sounds crazy. You barely know me. But the thing is, I know you. I've been paying attention to you at work and al the little things that you do. Like last Thursday. You know how I knew that you'd finally broken up with your boy {friend, I assume, this is where the rip begins}. Because of the brouch you you were wearing. Its the one the w {...the rip again} your grandmother's--that you g{rip} when she died and that you to {rip} you always wear when you fe{rip} and feel like you need strength {rip} I've been paying attention. I'm {rip} those meat-head boyfriends of {rip} I would actually listen to you. I {rip} I'm kind of quiet and awkwar{rip} I'm around people but that's {rip} outside, the world of shee {rip} eyeglasses. Inside {rip} I'm a different person. If {rip} give me the chance you'll se{rip} be good together.
So that's the letter. I don't know why I've been thinking about it so much. Something about it is so sad or plaintive. Last night I lay in bed with insomnia and thought about it. I imagined the whole blow by blow. This kind of mousy guy, nothing terribly wrong with him except that he's just a little short, wears glasses that don't complement his facial type, and lacks self-esteem and that sort of self-assurance that we gals find so attractive in a guy. He's the sort of guy that got teased a bit in high school and became withdrawn, you know the type. So he just carries a torch for the office hotty for like a year, hanging on her every word, writing it down and thinking about what it means and building this elaborate fantasy world and then he sees his chance.
She finally breaks it off with her latest jock boyfriend--the sort of guy that beat him up in high school. He gives her the letter. She looks it over. Is creeped out. Gives it coldly back to him and tells him that she is just going to try to forget the whole thing ever happened. So he leaves work distraught, tears up the letter and probably quits the next day. (How could he bear to face her day after day after all that?) For all I know he's probably suicidal right now.
I mean the whole thing is simultaneosly pathetic, romantic, and creepy (he's a bit of stalker). So much of life goes on underneath it all. Just in our thoughts and imagination and dreams. I think of all those times I was crushing on some guy and he was totally oblvious to it. To this day, I bet, most of them never figured it out. And then I think of those guys in high school that now I realize had a bit of thing for me. But what about the really quiet ones, the ones that maybe sat behind me, that I never even noticed. There's probably some guy out there right now just looking over my year book picture and having these really intense feelings that I will never know about. (As Pen would say, he's probably doing more than just having feelings, he's probably doing a lot more with you in his imagination than you care to realize.) That might be true but there is still something really sad about it, like a baby that was never born in a way.
Laura--I refuse to call you Laurie,
I know that to you I am just a guy at work, but I have to tell you: I am in Love With You. I know. This sounds crazy. You barely know me. But the thing is, I know you. I've been paying attention to you at work and al the little things that you do. Like last Thursday. You know how I knew that you'd finally broken up with your boy {friend, I assume, this is where the rip begins}. Because of the brouch you you were wearing. Its the one the w {...the rip again} your grandmother's--that you g{rip} when she died and that you to {rip} you always wear when you fe{rip} and feel like you need strength {rip} I've been paying attention. I'm {rip} those meat-head boyfriends of {rip} I would actually listen to you. I {rip} I'm kind of quiet and awkwar{rip} I'm around people but that's {rip} outside, the world of shee {rip} eyeglasses. Inside {rip} I'm a different person. If {rip} give me the chance you'll se{rip} be good together.
So that's the letter. I don't know why I've been thinking about it so much. Something about it is so sad or plaintive. Last night I lay in bed with insomnia and thought about it. I imagined the whole blow by blow. This kind of mousy guy, nothing terribly wrong with him except that he's just a little short, wears glasses that don't complement his facial type, and lacks self-esteem and that sort of self-assurance that we gals find so attractive in a guy. He's the sort of guy that got teased a bit in high school and became withdrawn, you know the type. So he just carries a torch for the office hotty for like a year, hanging on her every word, writing it down and thinking about what it means and building this elaborate fantasy world and then he sees his chance.
She finally breaks it off with her latest jock boyfriend--the sort of guy that beat him up in high school. He gives her the letter. She looks it over. Is creeped out. Gives it coldly back to him and tells him that she is just going to try to forget the whole thing ever happened. So he leaves work distraught, tears up the letter and probably quits the next day. (How could he bear to face her day after day after all that?) For all I know he's probably suicidal right now.
I mean the whole thing is simultaneosly pathetic, romantic, and creepy (he's a bit of stalker). So much of life goes on underneath it all. Just in our thoughts and imagination and dreams. I think of all those times I was crushing on some guy and he was totally oblvious to it. To this day, I bet, most of them never figured it out. And then I think of those guys in high school that now I realize had a bit of thing for me. But what about the really quiet ones, the ones that maybe sat behind me, that I never even noticed. There's probably some guy out there right now just looking over my year book picture and having these really intense feelings that I will never know about. (As Pen would say, he's probably doing more than just having feelings, he's probably doing a lot more with you in his imagination than you care to realize.) That might be true but there is still something really sad about it, like a baby that was never born in a way.
