Aporia

nostrich:

I got a text message from a friend earlier.

Just wanted to tell you I loved you. Thought it was about time.

Finally! I’ve been trying to make this girl fall in love with me since I met her.

About time. I’ve wanted you since we met.

That was my reply. Keep it cool, but make sure she knows it’s definitely mutual. Perfect reply, really. Then I got this:

Um. I meant to send that to someone else. Why would I say that to you, Rich?

Oh. That wasn’t quite what I hoped to hear. Felt a little like getting punched in the face, actually. By Cupid. That wanker always had it in for me. I replied:

This is a little awkward.

She hasn’t replied yet. Hopefully she won’t.

This is one of the worst things I’ve ever heard. I actually got sympathy pains, and involuntarily recalled some of the texting disasters of my own life, and now that I start down that path can’t help but recollect the time that, as a new seventh grader at a school whose students were far more emotionally and socially advanced than I was*, I actually cold-called a girl (a beautiful girl!) and asked her out because that’s sort of how I thought it was done.

She was as polite as she was horrified, said no with a tone of devastating pity, and I almost expired from shame. The phone is the enemy of the sensitive and hopeful: it makes it too easy to cross signals or misread intent.

Sorry, nostrich.