Why send that e-mail? It’s pointless dramatizing, unless you’d really love to mess with her head and encourage her to make her life complicated, through action or even through thinking. Sever. If you honestly don’t want to eat at the edges of her relationship I’d skip it. The e-mail smacks of ‘breaking up with friends’-- why ritualize it? Just sort of fade out of the scene.
You’re doing it again in this letter. You don’t even have to send her an email (I wouldn’t), nothing exists between you and this girl to even justify any sort of finality in correspondence. If it helps you shut down any worrisome potentials in your mind then go ahead and send it, but your desperation and near stalkerness (on a side note - going 20 minutes out of your way? really?) definitely comes through. I know you don’t mean it that way, but you reveal way too much. Not everything needs to be said all the time. If you really want I can slice out the loaded words and help you come up with something more appropriate to say.
I could speak on other parts of your situation, but since you seem to know the proper course to take that would be superfluous. I’ll just suggest a recalibration of your attitude and approach to future meetings like this.
I gotta tell you- I am a chatty person and have struck up conversations in bars/coffee shops/wherever and never have an intention of leading someone on or fucking with their heads. She just may be a bit of an overshare kind of gal- I work with one and she told me her whole life’s history within 10 minutes of meeting her. Anyway, don’t send that mail- it’s (IMHO) embarassingly sappy and weird and serves no purpose. Drop it, go to the coffee shop nearby instead and find someone else to chat with. It’s a crush and really, it will pass.
Um…yeah. I think we all got that.
I almost suspect that you are blowing your interactions with this girl way out of proportion. You bump into her on the way to the restroom and you think she’s trying to get close to you while she just has to drop a massive deuce. I mean just the whole tone of your OP. Rambling on and on and such. Your OP should have been one line:
“Hey, I met this girl in a coffee shop but she’s engaged. Should I pursue her?”
The answer, of course, is NO. First of all, you aren’t “seeing her”. You bumped into a stranger in a coffee shop. Second, you are probably just basking in the afterglow of her happiness over her engagement which has nothing to do with you. And finally, what are you going to do? Break up the engagement? You really want that sort of drama and karma coming down on you? People usually don’t get engaged on a whim. Any woman who is willing to break hers off at the last minute over some dude she met in a coffee shop generally has some issues.
Might I present a relevant, very amusing site that I dug up in the early days of trawling the internet? They don’t make sites like this any more:
Joe Logon’s foolproof guide to making any woman your platonic friend. Bittersweet, and so, so true.
I have had a few experiences which, in varying degrees, were similar to your situation as described in the OP.
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I met an attractive 30-ish woman a few years back at a local restaurant bar; She was married but was in town without her husband, and she made a point of telling me that they had an “open relationship” or something like that, and pretty much spelled it out that while hubby ran his businesses on the east coast and took various random lovers, so too did she travel on her own, taking lovers as the whim dictated. Their marriage was apparently something more like a business decision than a lifelong loving committment before Crom. I was somewhat skeptical at first, but I gave it a chance because, hey, free sex! Ending up having a one-night stand with her, breakfast in the morning and then a pleasant “good-bye” and she thanked me (I’d like to think sincerely) for the previous night. Sex was incredible, I formed no romantic attachments, and I haven’t ever seen or heard from her since. She was at least telling the truth about being married as she had the ring AND hubby’s credit card to check into a rather expensive hotel, though I have no way of knowing if the stuff she said about an “open relationship” was true or just her way of trying to put me at ease with taking things to a physical level.
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I was at a (different) restaurant bar a year or so later, and a really attractive lady in her early to mid-forties came in and sat near me…there was something fairly amusing playing on the TV (forget what it was) and I made some sort of comment about it, and she laughed and added her own quip. We started talking and buying each other drinks and so forth, and I noticed that (a) she didn’t have a wedding/engagement ring on and (b) she hadn’t mentioned anything about a SO (which usually happens when chatting with girls who are in a relationship; they want you to know that you shouldn’t get your hopes up because they are NOT going to sleep with you, thank you very much), so as she seemed to be wrapping things up, I asked her if I could get her number; maybe we could get together for lunch sometime? “Actually,” she said, “I’m married, and happily so. I just find that when I wear my ring no one seems to want to talk to me. Sorry!” Huh. She was charming and funny and in terms of personality was much more interesting to me than the woman in example 1, but there was going to be no chance of anything happening.
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I have a close friend who recently got married. I’ve known her since before she met her husband. Her husband is a good guy, but I (and just about everyone else that knows both of them) are dumbfounded as to why they were ever together, let alone why they got married. Again, it’s not that he’s in any way a bad guy; it’s just that they’re so…different from each other. And I don’t mean in a Green Acres opposites attract sort of way. Then again, maybe that is what the attraction is. Anyway, she and I got along so well that there were increasingly frequent times when all three of us would be out and the (then) fiancee would make a comment along the lines of “maybe you should marry him and I’ll just be the third wheel.” And he said it in an exasperated tone, not a merry one. Several of our mutual friends questioned why she was with him and not with me. She herself admitted to have talked to her mother on more than one occasion about whether she really ought to be with me instead of him, but she came to the conclusion that we were too alike, that we’d probably drive each other nuts. I countered by saying that she seems to be driven nuts by her fiancee anyway, so what’s the difference? Anyway, she went ahead and got married, and we see each other still, usually without hubby in tow, and I suspect that I serve as a sort of emotional affair for her sometimes. Nothing ever gets physical, but she gets more emotionally intimate with me than any of my previous girlfriends ever have. I’ve had to gradually distance myself from her to avoid causing a disruption in her marriage, but at the same time I don’t want to deny her an emotional outlet that she doesn’t seem to find anywhere else. Sticky situation.
In your situation, it’s like you’ve got a mix of 1 and 3, perhaps, but maybe you’re reading too much of what you want it to be. Anyway, if you weren’t so emotionally drawn to her, maybe you’d be able to be an occasional lover like #1, but it doesn’t seem like you’d be able to do that, and you’re already acting like it’s an emotional affair like #3. You’re better off avoiding her and not sending any goofy emails, but as others have guessed, you’re probably going to ignore any advice that doesn’t confirm what you already want to do anyway. You probably already sent the email. Oh, well. Live and learn.
Creepy, unless Jane herself gave you her email. Lose the email addy and get thee to another coffee shop.
Agreed.
How did you get the e-mail address? It sounds like she could have told you her email and you didn’t write it down, so you think you remember it correctly. It sounds more like you found it by looking through her online profiles (she showed you her MySpace page, correct?) or by some other devious fashion.
What if her fiancee reads her e-mail at all (with her permission or otherwise)? It’s not unheard of. Maybe he spots your email over her shoulder as he’s walking by… It could cause a lot of unnecessary drama for this nice girl.
Infatuation sucks. I know, I’ve been there… Find a new coffee shop.
I don’t have time to read all the replies; I do want to say though that she’s not “taken” (as if she has no choice). She’s made a decision. She can change it if she wants to. Apparently she doesn’t.
You mean, uh, like a kid? Even one whose still in diapers? I was on the fence 'til that (conveniently buried lede) came up.
Women do approach guys (or who are approached by guys) with platonic friendship in mind. Yes, even beautiful women enjoy friends of both genders and occasional casual conversation without giving a second thought to clitoral stimulation.
That being said, this women doesn’t seem like one of them. But that doesn’t mean she wants a boyfriend or even a lover. If you really do reek of desperation, I wonder if anything mattered beyond the fact that you were there, male and liked the attention. Sounds like she was trying to get a thrill, remind herself she’s attractive or whatever before being bound by matrimony. Or taking it a step further and actually seeking an affair, sowing her wild oats and all that. It’s up to you whether you’re interested in stoking her ego or plumbing her depths, but if you opt for the latter it won’t be a relationship, you will be her tool.
The situation stinks of dysfunction from both parties.
If you are hoping for a healthy relationship with this woman, I don’t think you’re going to get it because either she is just flirting with you for fun and is staying in her committed relationship, or she is looking for someone else to cheat with which demonstrates inconsiderate, irresponsible behavior.
If you are just looking for sex, then you might get it. In terms of morals, most people frown upon helping someone cheat, but if you don’t care about the judgments of others, then you are free to try to take advantage of this situation.
If you want to end this situation, just stop going to the coffee shop. Sending an email seems inappropriate and unnecessary.
There are a lot of attractive women who are not in relationships. Go out and get one.
I’ll be the dissenting voice. Make no mistake, it will almost certainly come crashing down in spectacular fashion hurting everyone involved, but few things in life are as exciting as a torrid affair.
Walk the other way.
I’d just like to point out that on a web site ostensibly dedicated to the truth, this is probably the truest statement I’ve ever seen posted. H&R, that was effing brilliant.
Please don’t send that email! I know almost nothing about these things but that’s just not right. I’ve written letters I now cringe about because I had all kinds of stuff that I had to get off my chest and felt like the other person would somehow care about it, but really it’s all your own baggage and not for them at all. Come talk about it here if you have to, but don’t involve this person.
In addition, if she keeps it around and someone else like her partner sees it, it’s stating a truth that doesn’t really exist (that you are seeing each other).
What exactly does “can’t control yourself” mean? If all you did was bump into her at the cafe now and then, how would it go farther?
Well, I do think you should send the email (assuming that you got the email address in some kind of legitimate fashion). I’ve been the unintentional tease, and I have very much appreciated knowing why my brand new friend suddenly dissapeared off the map. That way, instead of stressing out thinking “What the hell? Did I offend them? Should I try to contact them?”, I can smile and think “What a sweet guy. I hope he’s doing well and finds someone out there for him.”
Sometimes, knowing why is good. But as a guy who has too often misinterpreted friendliness as interest, and then discovered that I didn’t have a chance, I should add: don’t ever say that. To someone whose dreams have just been crushed, it’s like rubbing salt in the wounds.
Um…
I woke up this morning, remembering I had posted this. To be honest, I was too embarrassed to even come in and read the replies. I had no idea what had gotten into me last night. Takes a certain state of mind, I suppose.
I just wanted to say that I’m NOT going to send that letter; my god, I can’t believe I wrote all that.
She did give me her email, I didn’t stalk it out or anything. If anything, I’m going to use it to send a VERY short note with zero creepy intentions. And as for the rest of this thread, excuse me for not reading it until (much later)… I’m too creeped out by it myself. Sorry. Egads. How sad.
Yeah, she was being a tease. She knew she was hot and could get attention by talking to you. I find that kind of behavior really obnoxious, btw.
Dude, no. No correspondence. She’s got a kid in diapers for Christ’s sake. Seek coffee and company elsewhere.