Monday 15 June 2020

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Back in the days when I had the time, and also when email was a less dominant form of written communication, I used to be a prolific letter writer. Some of the letters I wrote were sent to female friends I was now living some distance away from, or pen-pals I'd somehow accumulated through my interests in music or poetry.

The ways these narratives usually progress in film and fiction is that the person receiving these letters - which are, of course, witty, wise and often confessional, because we all think we're astonishing at writing letters, obviously - gets wooed by the writer and a serious relationship ensues.

That never happened to me, but whenever I entered into a relationship through other less extraordinary means, the letters often became a source of jealousy and suspicion. Likewise, at least one of the partners of the recipients of my letters made enquiries about who I was and what was going on, even though he didn't live on the same continent or time zone as me.

To summarise the problem in a nutshell, the posted written word can be quite loaded and more dangerous and easier to misinterpret than a phone call. That's the inspiration for this poem/prose piece (call it what you want) over and above everything else.

As to whether an event actually occurred as suggested in the audio below, not really. I never had a proper conversation with a partner about the appropriateness of someone else's behaviour, though I did have to deal with the odd withering comment or raised eyebrow ("Oh, I see [insert name here] has been in touch yet again") - but pretending I did have a serious issue gives the piece something to react off and bounce against; plus, giving the piece an interrupting additional voice also serves the added purpose of making me sound like less of a vain shit who is assuming romantic interest from someone else where there might actually be none. Now do you see how deceptive people who think about writing a lot can be? Stick to phone calls, that's my advice.

If you'd prefer not to engage with the audio below and just read the piece you can find the text here.

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