Dear Stupid: A Love Story

Saturday, 10:00 p.m.

Them: “Your stupid.”

Me: “Excuse me? You’re coming in a little hot there, buddy. We haven’t seen each other in how long? And that’s what you have to say to me? I’m stupid?”

“And FYI – It’s ‘you’re’ (not ‘your’), as in you’re the one who’s stupid here. Obviously. First, for calling me stupid completely out of the blue. And second, for not being able to put together a simple, grammatically correct two-word sentence.”

Them: “Wow. Feisty! I just remembered…you always had to be the smartest person in every room…constantly correcting everyone.”

Me: “How, exactly, did you expect me to respond when you hit send on that email? Wow.”

Them: “Sassy. I like it.”

Me: “Ugh. Please go crawl back under the rock you just came out from.”

Them: “LOL. Good one. But no.”

Me: “Seriously? What, exactly, is it that you want…other than to insult me?”

Them: “I wanted to say hi.”

Me: “You wanted to say hi? After not seeing each other for years? And this is how you go about doing it? That’s stupid. And now you’ve accomplished your mission. You’ve said hi. You’re dismissed.”

Them: “Whoa. Calm down. I just want to conversate with you. Is that too much to ask?”

Me: “Are you kidding me right now? Conversate isn’t even a word. Do I have to explain everything to you?”

“You could, perhaps, have said, ‘I’d like to have a conversation with you.’”

“And I might have responded with something like, ‘Oh really? That’s interesting. What would you like to have a conversation with me about? Especially after all these years?’”

“But instead, you said you’d like to conversate. After calling me stupid. You know what’s stupid? THAT’s stupid.”

“I’ve already lost interest in whatever it is you could possibly be emailing me about. That’s assuming I had any interest whatsoever from the start of this ridiculous thread, which I did not.”

Them: “It’s a word. It’s in the dictionary.”

Me: “Wow. Ok. Whatever. It’s colloquial. Speak proper English for a change. Why are you bothering me?”

Them: “I miss you.”

Me: “You what now? You miss me??? That’s ridiculous. You can’t miss someone you’ve been ignoring your entire life.

Them: “I haven’t been ignoring you.”

Me: “So, when you walked by me in the halls and looked the other way, that was you not ignoring me? When you sat across from me in classes and never said a word to me, that was you not ignoring me? When I rode my bike past your house and you were outside playing basketball with your friends and you didn’t say hi or wave even though you were looking right at me, that was you not ignoring me? When we were lined up in alphabetical order next to each other at graduation and you didn’t say a word to me during the entire ceremony, that was you not ignoring me?”

Them: “Yes. Exactly. That was me not ignoring you. I saw you all the time. I talked to you. Didn’t I? I thought I did. And I thought I waved or something that day you rode by on your bike.”

Me: “You waved or something??? You did not. You did nothing. You made me feel like a total idiot for smiling at you and waving. I was humiliated.”

“BTW, how did you get my email address?”

Them: “We exchanged emails when we worked on that group science project in 7th grade.”

Me: “And you kept my email all these years? That’s not just a little creepy. But, whatever.”

Them: “Yeah, I kept your email. I mean. You never know. Right? There’s no need to overreact about me just reaching out to say hi to an old school friend.”

Me: “Old school friend? You barely spoke to me from 1st grade all the way through high school graduation!”

“What science project? I don’t remember doing any science project with you.”

Them: “That global weather patterns project. We made that poster and graph.”

Me: “We??? I did all the work. Obviously, you contributed nothing, or I would have remembered you were in my group.”

Them: “Well we got an A on it. Isn’t that all that matters?”

Me: “Yes. And it was probably better your fingerprints weren’t all over that project anyway or it would have ended up a mess and screwed up my 4.0 GPA.”

Them: “Harsh. But I guess you’re welcome.” :-p

Them: “Hello?”

Them: “Hello?”

Them: “You still there?”

Them: “Aw…Where’d ya go?”

Sunday, 1:00 p.m.

Them: “I miss you…”

Me: “OMG. You’re still emailing me? What do you want???”

Them: “You. I miss you.”

Me: “The facts are that you ignored me all those years, whether you think you did or not, and NOW you miss me??? I do not understand what this is. What is actually happening here? How is it possible that you would even miss me? We graduated from high school five years ago!”

Them: “Feeling nostalgic I guess.”

Me: “Feeling nostalgic about what? You barely know me!”

Them: “Do you seriously have no idea that I’ve been totally into you since 3rd grade? Your long shiny hair that fluttered in the breeze when you rode your bike by my house. The way you always clenched your teeth and bit your pencil when you were working on a really hard math problem. The way you’d get those tiny little cute freckles on your nose every spring when you were outside playing soccer every day. Those long beautiful legs running down the field. That pretty little dress you wore when you went out with your friends. All of it.”

“You’re pretty stupid if you didn’t notice how much I’ve always liked you!”

Me: “Seriously? I thought you hated me. Why have you barely talked to me and acted like I didn’t exist all these years? And why did you call me stupid yesterday?”

Them: “I dunno. I’m just stupid I guess.”

Me: “Yeah. You’re so stupid. Want to come over?”