Look, I’m sorry you and about 50 other women got hoodwinked by some overseas Lothario into thinking you were The One For Him, but let’s be realistic here:
Bad, sappy love letters by Smoove B are not comparable to Shakespeare and Yeats. You would think “bright, intellectual” women would know that.
But that embarassing remark aside, I’d say our overseas friend is a grade-A :wally - no doubt about that.
However, this part I don’t get:
Investigating what? What crime was committed? Emotional fraud? How could the Army possibly punish him?
I know when my husband was in Vietnam, he was lax in his letter-writing duties to his parents. His sergeant MADE HIM WRITE TO THEM. I thought it was a bit pushy, but they operate under a whole 'nuther set of rules in the military.
Jeez, that’d set off my Creep-O-Meter so bad you’d hear the ringing in the next country. (Not to mention my Bullshit Meter!) And I’m only 17–shouldn’t this people be just a tad more cynical than I am? Whis is wrong with these “bright, intellectual” women?
But don’t miss the fact that Shakespeare was both a writer of great literature and a master of entertaining the masses. I recall in high school a couple of teachers who explored some of the long-since-archaic slang he used, most notably that “die” in Elizabethan English carries the same general double entendre that “come” does in Modern English – both a verb with a denotative meaning and a euphemism for “have an orgasm” – “Let me but once hold you in my arms, and I will die content” would have caused knowing snickers in the pit at the Globe.
Writing with the double intent of entertaining the masses and conveying a message of some significance is a talent that good writers have had throughout literary history – and one ignored by pretenders to literary merit.
Apparently, for these women, “bright and intellectual” translates as “desperate and gullible.” C’mon any woman who would think that that not-ready-for Harlequin bodice-rippers twaddle is better than Yeats or Shakespeare is clearly neither bright nor intellectual. The only person those women should be blaming is themselves for being so needy and desperate that they would fall in love with a guy pitching such an incredibly weak line of bullshit and that they hadn’t even met yet.
Those losers need to put down the Haagen-Daaz and their True Romance magazines, make their way out the door past their >3 cats, and go find a real guy.
Polycarp, I’ll grant you this guy was, in a weird way, “entertaining the masses,” but he wouldn’t know a double entendre if it bit him on his donkey, and he is definitely not a “writer of great literature.”
And Kalhoun, I don’t know what you think about the military, but different people do things differently and that was in Viet-fricken-nam. Your friend’s NCO was either really concerned for the guy’s emotional well-being (and that of their families) or a tremendous blowhard.
I have to agree that these stupid cows have only themselves to blame. “Intelligent” women don’t fall for the kind of hokey bullshit that this guy wrote. Did you notice that the articles says that he would often just recycle e-mail he received from one woman and send it to another. So he didn’t even write all that sappy crap himself. It sounds like a lot of the stuff they were swooning over was actually written the other women he was scamming. Funny.
These women must have some serious social issues. It’s kind of pathetic, anyway, to have to resort to e-mail relationships with some unseen, overseas soldier to give themselves the illusion of a relationship. They really need to go to a club or something.
Thank you so much for agreeing with me (or should I say I’m agreeing with you?). I laughed out loud when I read that in the Times. This was my second-favorite quote:
. Usually when one starts defending themselves by saying “I’m not stupid,” it’s a pretty good indication that they are. Especially when one buys a wedding gown to marry someone they’ve never met before. Now, I can understand the Internet’s place in starting a new relationship, but I think some “face time” is definitely needed before deciding on that level of committment.
I read Smoove B’s latest today, and I find the comparison apt. I wonder if this “knight in shining armor” ever offered to “freak them wild.”
I think the army is investigating because he was apparently “engaged” to these women. I may be mistaken, but isn’t engagement considered a legally binding contract? They are seeing just how far into the legal contract he had gone with more than one woman. That’s probably it, but IANAL either.
OPHELIA: My Lord, I have e-mails of yours,
which I long to redeliver;
I pray you, now receive them
HAMLET: I never gave you aught.
OPHELIA: My honor’d lord, you know right well you did;
“ooh baby, baby”, thou hast written;
And with words of so sweet breath composed
As made the things more rich: their perfume lost,
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.
There, my lord.
HAMLET: You should not have believed me;
for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock,
but we shall relish of it; I loved you not.
OPHELIA. I was the more deceived.
HAMLET. Get yo’ ass to a nunnery, be-yatch.
It’s amusing to note I only changed three words and inserted a single sentence in that entire passage. Also edited for brevity (ACT III - scene1)
