At Least They're Committed

Strolling to the restaurant down the block with Jon and Darren and watching various alley debris skitter across the pavement, we began discussing interesting things we’d discovered that had been discarded. Jon once found a paper with someone’s life and career goals written on it, including the pros and cons of the two women the person was dating. We chuckled and I regaled them with the story of how, soon after the cute young man who would become my first fiance’ moved in at the top of the lane, I “accidentally” dropped between our two mailboxes a folded message written to “Jennifer,” my best friend at the time. (She did help me with it.)  In the handwritten note, I had woven conversational and relevant information I wanted said young man to know about me. At the bottom of the college-ruled notebook paper, I mentioned him moving in and then tore off a section of it so the reader would be left to try to piece together the meaning.

It worked. His mom found it (always a bonus), and at her encouragement he introduced himself, we had an awesome relationship for three or four years, and then he got to be way too needy and I just hate it when men beg.

No matter, the point is that it was clever and it yielded results and, building on this success, I’ve used such tactics at other times throughout my life (it should be noted that the content of any said messages would be entirely truthful and accurate). So, if you’d like to know whether I’d do it again, say accidentally sending an email or text “meant for someone else,” then casually apologizing for the mix-up, well, yes I would — I’m not saying I have or haven’t, I’m just saying I would. (Eye-bat, hair-flip and girlish giggle go here.)