Tuesday 11 June 2013

Love Letters are Stupid

Where, I wonder, do girls get the idea that love letters are a good idea? Are there love letters in Little Women? Or do we associate praise and acceptance with writing because our early efforts are so praised and encouraged by elementary school teachers? Or are we ourselves so moved by the written word, we assume boys must be, too?

I suppose sometimes they are, but then there are these lines by the Polish poet Tadeusz Dąbrowski about a character who is cleaning up his computer: "...ten, posyłący do sieciowego  nieba/kilka do bólu otwartych koleżane ze studiów (the one sending to internet heaven/ some painfully open girlfriends from uni)". "Painfully open." Ouch.  "Girlfriends." Girlfriendsss. Ouchy ouch.

In the old days you really had to work to make an ass of yourself through writing. You needed the right paper, and the right envelope, and the right stamp. You needed the right pen--not too scratchy as Anne of Anne of Windy Poplars might say (aha!). You needed to take your deeply honest outpourings, your creation so beautiful that it made you sniffle a bit as you reread it, to the postbox. As it was usually dark by the time you finished, you had to wait until morning. If you were really lucky, when morning broke you changed your mind and ripped up your paper darling into a million pieces.

"I hope you know that So-and-So," said my friend Jackie, mispronouncing So-and-So's excitingly exotic surname, "is running all over [his] school, showing everyone your letter."

Oh, the humiliation. But I had almost learned my lesson. Every time I broke up with a guy, I demanded my letters back. And, no, of course I shouldn't have written them in the first place. Writing a guy a love letter is the equivalent of sending him a page from your diary, and let us now all ponder our teenage diaries in silence.

Email makes it easier, of course, and if you are like me, you are waiting eagerly for the Great Wipe that will erase the hard drives of the world, sending bureaucrats gobbling to their paper files and card catalogues, and bringing the world to the brink of nuclear catastrophe but, thank heaven, obliterating that extremely stupid email I wrote in 1997.

Agatha Christie novels are charmingly full of love rats with imprudent letters for sale. Lady Marjoribanks, her white hands clutching at the pearls around her still-unlined throat, has always written these letters when she was a young girl, just out of school, and her husband would never, ever understand. "Please help me, Hercules Poirot. You're my only hope."

You would think that this would teach us never to write love letters, but alas. But unless you become a woman in public life, it is much more likely that your love rat will not try to extort money from you, which is illegal, but merely hit "Forward All," which isn't.

Of course men write love letters, too, and unless you love the men, their effusions can be pretty dull. I have a policy of not reading the love letters men send to my friends because I felt so awful reading an eight page love letter a boy I knew sent a girl I knew when we were all 15 or so. It was not a great letter. All I remember about it was how long it was, and how dull, and how horrible that I was reading it as its only intended audience sat beside me and smirked.

But in general I associate letter-writing as just one more way in which we women try to rid ourselves of the painful burden of unexpressed love. And this is why we really have to watch ourselves and ask ourselves, as we were writing, "How would this sound if it were read at my funeral?"

AUTHOR KILLED BY BUS BURIED

Niche-blogger Seraphic McAmbrose was run over by a Lothian bus Monday as she ran across the street to buy a pint of milk. To celebrate her lamentably short career as a writer, at her funeral selections were read from her email account. "My darling Fred," read the late author's husband, Benedict Ambrose, "I will never, ever forsake you for another. How could you suggest such a thing, my angel, when the sun rises and sets in your eyes? When I come back from my holiday in Scotland, I will put on that teeny-weeny itsy-bitsy dress you like so much."  The widower was seen to wipe a way a tear as he read, "This is the kind of provincial narrow-minded yahoo **** I expect from your brand of New England thuggery, Father Reilly."   

I made those up. Actually, when I have tense business correspondence, Benedict Ambrose edits my replies before I hit send. I know another foreign lady whose British husband edits her tense business correspondence, too. I am not sure this works so well when writing to Americans, however, as Americans tend to prefer terse honesty to proper British lah-dee-dah pussyfootery. Which brings me to my next point.

Know your audience. This is one of the most important rules in writing. The problem with love letters is that if you are dazed by love, you are not writing to the guy but to the image of the guy you have in your head. That is one reason why your letter sounds so stupid later instead of like a 21st century version of Shakespeare's Sonnets. (Incidentally, a man once wrote to me, "My baby's eyes are nothing like the sun" completely oblivious to the fact that Shakespeare meant it as a teasing insult. IDIOT! How dare he rip off Shakespeare in a letter to ME? Pretentious mumble mumble mmmggggmmmgggmmm.)  And if you really know your audience, i.e. male, you will realize that you have no business writing a love letter to a man who has not declared his love first.

Second, know your motive. What is the purpose of your communication? Because, in general, men only communicate to exchange information, to create a self-serving impression, to make someone laugh, to frighten a perceived attacker or because they enjoy the sound of their own voice. Therefore, you really shouldn't bother even talking to them unless you know what your motive is. This is why questions are so useful, in speaking to men, and monologues about your feelings so dumb.

Woman: ...and so I told her I wasn't sure I could do that and of course it is always so tiring after an entire day of washing test-tubes to pick up someone else's children and although I really love the children it makes me feel sad to see them in a way because of not having children myself and..

Man (thinking): What do you want from me?

Personally, although I very much enjoy writing letters, I think of them primarily as gifts, to keep the friend abreast of news back home. And I am very pleased when I get the gift of a letter back, as it shows my letter-gift was appreciated.

Third, forgive yourself for past stupidity and pledge to be more prudent in future. If you wouldn't say something over the phone, don't write it in an email or letter. And if it's something lovey-dovey you would say over the phone, but you're not actually engaged or married to the guy, don't write it in an email or letter. And if you are writhing in humiliation over some thing you did write, go out at once and get Simone de Beauvoir's love letters to Nelson Algren.

Ah, Simone, Simone the arch-feminist who let Jean-Paul Sartre walk all over her. Thank heavens for Simone, for from Simone we learn that even bestselling arch-feminist French authors can be pretty stupid about men and write such broken-English stuff to their other lovers as:

It is very bad never to come in my dreams in night, and then to come all day long [into my thoughts], smiling to me, looking at me, speaking to me or kissing me in the most inconvenient circumstances... Let me kiss you a very long kiss. Je vous aime, mon amour.
                                                                          
                                                                                        --Your little frog and own Simone. 

10 comments:

Agnes said...

"Because, in general, men only communicate to exchange information, to create a self-serving impression, to make someone laugh, to frighten a perceived attacker or because they enjoy the sound of their own voice."

I'm not sure that this is entirely true. Men are socially conditioned to not show or share emotion (in writing or otherwise), but that doesn't mean they don't (or don't want to). Also, how were you thinking that "[creating] a self-serving impression" would look like? It seems you think men have only negative or questionable reasons for writing.

Jo said...

I've come to find that the most decent men I know are the ones who still make the effort to drop the occasional note in the mail, but that could just be the coincidence of my own experience.

I do think it is important, though, to emphasize that it is the sending of impulsive love letters that really ought to be avoided. I love to write letters, and even just in the context of friends or family, there are always moments where I feel moved to write an angry note. Following through and writing such letters can actually be a bit cathartic, as long as they are torn up before they have a chance to get to the mailbox. One can get most of the satisfaction of writing the letter without the undesirable consequences.

Woodbine said...

I still have flashes of mortification when I remember a letter that I sent across the classroom in grade 3. Suffice to say, the boy and I never got together.

I've written a number of love letters since (sometime you just can't not...) but I've kept them to myself. Although I know it's a bit vain to hold onto them, there is one that I'm kind of proud of. Unrequited love brings out some interesting prose. I may get rid of them in a more mature moment.

Seraphic - I'm glad you're staying public! It's so brave to keep putting yourself out there, and it's very appreciated.

urszula said...

As my Polish grandma would say, nothing stains a woman's soul as badly as ink does. That of course did not stop me from writing nukerous epistles, thankfully almost all of them as a teenager.

Seraphic said...

@Agnes. Well, I did say in general. And I don't think female, emotive forms of communication are better, just different. By self-serving I really mean "in his own interests." Sorry to have seemed more negative than I meant to be. I just think it is important for women to understand, for our own happiness, that men just do not usually communicate exactly like us, or for the same reasons. And I do not think that this is a blameworthy state of affairs caused because men are emotionally hacked off at the knees as they are growing up.

MaryJane said...

@Agnes - check out "You Just Don't Understand: Men and Women in Conversation" by Deborah Tannen. She is a linguist who has observed the difference in communication patterns between men and women - the primary one being that men speak to exchange information while women speak to develop rapport/ relationships.

Agnes said...

"@Agnes. Well, I did say in general. And I don't think female, emotive forms of communication are better, just different. By self-serving I really mean "in his own interests." Sorry to have seemed more negative than I meant to be. I just think it is important for women to understand, for our own happiness, that men just do not usually communicate exactly like us, or for the same reasons. And I do not think that this is a blameworthy state of affairs caused because men are emotionally hacked off at the knees as they are growing up."

That's quite true - you did speak generally. However... Speaking generally myself, when people hear "generally" they sometimes hear "always," even if just subconsciously. Humans are, by nature, taken to stereotyping and group-making for their own survival (which is where such propensities arise) - I mean, it's the reason profiling is used, after all. Anyhow, I would have just said "there are of course exceptions" to emphasize the fact that there are (rare) nice men who do communicate outside the reasons stated who may be mistaken for something less/worse (such as being self-serving).


"@Agnes - check out "You Just Don't Understand: Men and Women in Conversation" by Deborah Tannen. She is a linguist who has observed the difference in communication patterns between men and women - the primary one being that men speak to exchange information while women speak to develop rapport/ relationships."

This is true, and I am aware of such realities. That doesn't mean that men don't (or can't) communicate emotions. We should keep an open mind in that regard in case a man does do such a thing. It is true, majority-wise, that "men are emotionally hacked off at the knees as they are growing up," but I think we ought to do our best to reverse such misfortune by allowing men the possibility of communicating for reasons outside those stated in the blogpost. Otherwise, I think we just end up finalizing the emotional gutting that began when such men were young.

The analogy I have heard of allowing a flower (the man) a larger pot (wider/higher expectations) to grow bigger (better) is a good one.

Cordi said...

So is destroying old love letters one has received (presuming one does not marry the writer) the only decent thing to do, or is one allowed to keep them because they are part of one's past, and remind one of who one used to be? I guess I wouldn't want some other woman to have love letters my husband wrote, but it also seems silly to try to pretend that those emotions and words never happened...

MaryJane said...

Agnes, I certainly wasn't saying that men can't communicate outside the "male-information" method box! (And I don't think Seraphic was either.) Actually, I think it's just important for women - who usually impute their own communication method of building relationships onto men - to know that men are different. It's a recognition of the beauty of difference and what we can learn from each other. The same is true for men: it's good for them to know *why* a woman is talking when she is not sharing information as they expect. I think if both men and women are (a) understanding and (b) respectful of the other's communication style, we can get a lot further in communication and perhaps even try to move outside our comfort zone. Incidentally, I personally don't know a lot of men who were hacked off emotionally at the knees. In my experience when they share their "feelings" it is still to give me information: "I'm acting angry right now because Joe at work stole my project" etc. That being said, of course it depends on the individual.

@Cordi: I think the only respectable thing to do is burn the letters, for exactly the reason you stated. Would you want some other woman having love letters from your husband? Or honestly, would you even want those letters existing if you wrote them? It's the charitable thing to burn them. It's not like saying whatever happened didn't happen, but rather that it's not happening any more and you aren't wed to the past. Think of the scene in Emma where Harriet burns the trivial things she has from her non-relationship with Mr. Elton - a sign that she is (trying to get) over him.

Pearlmusic said...

Your post have reminded me of something. Indeed, love letters ARE stupid when you send them. But there is a therapeutic method (used mostly by women, I believe, because it’s so feminine by nature) based on writing letters and then either burning them or sending astray, so they get lost and are never read by their addressee. It is highly recommended when you are dealing with some emotional stuff towards a person, but you cannot or shouldn’t express it directly to them. This is sometimes love, this can also be anger or resentment. And the person doesn’t necessarily have to be our crush, but a family member or our boss.

I did it a few times in my life and must admit that it worked every time I did it. One of the most romantic ways I tried was putting the letter in a bottle and throwing it into the sea (it wasn’t a love letter, though). I don’t mean I magically made someone fall in love with me this way (no – I don’t promise you that at all!!!), but whatever this relationship was, it was later either improved or gone. This is no sort of magic, although it seems so ritual-like. But if there’s a ritual, it only serves your own purification. You discover you have these emotions , have to deal with them, try to name them, pour them out and let go. You may say a little prayer afterwards. And now that you’re not blinded so much by your feelings, you may act in a more reasonable way and see things as they really are.