Dear English Professor,
I admit, it was nice that you said I looked like Virginia Woolf in the hat. Literary allusions are generally quite alluring, and it's nice to hear that I "look like a modernist." However, your claim to have seen me at the establishment two weeks ago smells suspiciously like the cat's litter box, which is now going on day three of stagnancy. For I was most certainly not at that establishment two weeks previous. Ain't no two ways about that.
It was almost suave how you saddled up to my booth and asked me about writing, and how you laughed at my rolled-trousers joke. Ooh, and when you started talking about how you're editing So-and-so's final book, betcha thought that was the hook! Well, to be honest, I was really hoping to have a quiet night writing to dear Trevor. That's the reason I go to quiet places in the evening: to write alone.
Still, it's rare that I find somebody who shares my distaste for the comma splice, and a little conversation wouldn't have hurt. But then you did it! You really shot yourself in the foot! First you start asking me about Audrey Hepburn's sex life (after pointing out our alleged similarity, a thinly veiled attempt at feeling out my prudishness or vixenhood), then you follow up by saying that Marilyn Monroe liked being seen only as a sexpot. When I told you she was a brilliant but underestimated woman who read Schopenhauer and Kierkegaard, I was not bullshitting you; why did you doubt me? Because you read Mailer's books about her? Mailer is a woman-beating schmuck and you know it.
Furthermore (and to be honest, this is where you really got on my nerves), you callously dismissed Buffy without having ever seen an episode. "Pop culture is not worth studying," you sniffed. "Virginia Woolf is worth studying." Maybe she is (and what's with the Woolf fixation?), and I have studied her work, but the two subjects are not mutually exclusive. Angel reads Sartre and Spike makes wry allusions to the St. Crispin's speech; tell me that's not intelligent programming. Oh, you did. Maybe they don't have television in the ivory tower. Or maybe you like to pretend that you don't watch it, but really you're a closeted JAG fan.
Now, as for when you asked me out: Instead of telling the truth (you are a snob; you are too old for me; you talk to me condescendingly but seem to want some sort of youthful trophy on your arm) I said no, but thank you for asking. But you were persistent, all the while pretending that you weren't being pushy. But you were! Giving me your web site's postcard ("It's a literary journal, not a web site") would have been a classy move if it hadn't come after the "It's just a date!" routine. If it were just a date to you, you'd have let it go. But instead, you finally gave up, and abruptly stomped off.
In the future I hope that you are less pushy with women, and that maybe you will stop trying to intellectually bully nice girls into spending their time with you. You are undoubtedly intelligent and well-read, but reading literature means nothing if you can't learn some lessons about people in the process.
Stepping off the bossy soapbox,
Miss T
(ps) I just Googled your name and found out that you are forty! Forty! I am far too young for you!
I admit, it was nice that you said I looked like Virginia Woolf in the hat. Literary allusions are generally quite alluring, and it's nice to hear that I "look like a modernist." However, your claim to have seen me at the establishment two weeks ago smells suspiciously like the cat's litter box, which is now going on day three of stagnancy. For I was most certainly not at that establishment two weeks previous. Ain't no two ways about that.
It was almost suave how you saddled up to my booth and asked me about writing, and how you laughed at my rolled-trousers joke. Ooh, and when you started talking about how you're editing So-and-so's final book, betcha thought that was the hook! Well, to be honest, I was really hoping to have a quiet night writing to dear Trevor. That's the reason I go to quiet places in the evening: to write alone.
Still, it's rare that I find somebody who shares my distaste for the comma splice, and a little conversation wouldn't have hurt. But then you did it! You really shot yourself in the foot! First you start asking me about Audrey Hepburn's sex life (after pointing out our alleged similarity, a thinly veiled attempt at feeling out my prudishness or vixenhood), then you follow up by saying that Marilyn Monroe liked being seen only as a sexpot. When I told you she was a brilliant but underestimated woman who read Schopenhauer and Kierkegaard, I was not bullshitting you; why did you doubt me? Because you read Mailer's books about her? Mailer is a woman-beating schmuck and you know it.
Furthermore (and to be honest, this is where you really got on my nerves), you callously dismissed Buffy without having ever seen an episode. "Pop culture is not worth studying," you sniffed. "Virginia Woolf is worth studying." Maybe she is (and what's with the Woolf fixation?), and I have studied her work, but the two subjects are not mutually exclusive. Angel reads Sartre and Spike makes wry allusions to the St. Crispin's speech; tell me that's not intelligent programming. Oh, you did. Maybe they don't have television in the ivory tower. Or maybe you like to pretend that you don't watch it, but really you're a closeted JAG fan.
Now, as for when you asked me out: Instead of telling the truth (you are a snob; you are too old for me; you talk to me condescendingly but seem to want some sort of youthful trophy on your arm) I said no, but thank you for asking. But you were persistent, all the while pretending that you weren't being pushy. But you were! Giving me your web site's postcard ("It's a literary journal, not a web site") would have been a classy move if it hadn't come after the "It's just a date!" routine. If it were just a date to you, you'd have let it go. But instead, you finally gave up, and abruptly stomped off.
In the future I hope that you are less pushy with women, and that maybe you will stop trying to intellectually bully nice girls into spending their time with you. You are undoubtedly intelligent and well-read, but reading literature means nothing if you can't learn some lessons about people in the process.
Stepping off the bossy soapbox,
Miss T
(ps) I just Googled your name and found out that you are forty! Forty! I am far too young for you!
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