Aug 25 2007
Ooops, Brillig did it again
Soap Opera Sunday, dear Gentle Readers!
Once upon a time, there was this one guy. He somehow kept popping into my life. Sometimes we were romantically involved, sometimes we were raging enemies, sometimes he was involved with one (or two or three) of my friends. Usually, we were friends.
As it just so happened, he was on a mission for the LDS church right around the time I was, though we were in different missions.
He began writing me, which didn’t seem very strange because, as I said, we were friends–friends with a crazy past, but friends. And so I wrote back. Why not? It was a simple letter, filled with mission anecdotes and tales of my companions and the mud I walked through every day–mostly it was just a courtesy response to all the letters he’d been writing. And, well, to make it more entertaining–stir up a scandal in his mission–I drew hearts and left red-lipstick-kissy-marks all over the outer envelope. My rationale here was that I wanted to give the mail sorters, who were also missionaries, something to tease him over–which I explained to him in the letter. Because I certainly didn’t mean it as anything romantic–our romantic days were WAY behind us and I never thought of him that way.
Unfortunately, he, um, skipped that explanation.
The other night while I was going through the last of my junk as we were trying to move out of my old house, I found his response to my simple little letter. And so, now, I share a piece of it with you:
Brillig, I love you. A whole lot. I want to be perfectly honest, because I read your letter 50,000 times because the first time I read it, it said one thing to me and the second time it said another. The opposite. After that it was a tennis match–back and forth. The confusion rose to a fevered pitch when my companion took the letter away and read it himself. He told me that girls who weren’t interested in him didn’t kiss the envelopes, kidding or not. I agreed, but added that he didn’t know Brillig–to which he responded that apparently neither did I.
But you know what I think? I think I love you. And I always will. But you already know that. It’s just that when I think about you, my heart rate increases, I get in a better mood, or I sigh or something dumb like that. I can’t forget silly things like your voice or your eyes or your mannerisms. I can try to ignore them, but I can’t forget them. I love you, Brillig.
You can, then, imagine what I thought when I received this letter:
OOOOOOOOPS!!!!!
Apparently, I had a knack for making boys think there was something going on between us when, in my mind, there was nothing.
I hadn’t meant to mess with him, I hadn’t meant to “confuse” him, I hadn’t meant to elicit his pledges of love. And, the sad truth was, I was SO OVER HIM. I was… you know… um… just being… um… silly.
Oops!
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And here are the rest of the Soap Opera Sunday participants:
Walking Kateastrophe (my soapy co-conspirator)
Are you playing Soap Opera Sunday too? If so, be sure you link back to me and Kate and then let us know you’re playing (please do not assume that we already know!) and we’ll add your link to the list! For more info, read this post.
Gosh those darn lipstick smooches!!
Playing along again.
http://thaliaschild.blogspot.com/2007/08/sos-moments.html
Oh that is the worst. I don’t seem to have had quite the same knack for it that you did, but I definitely did the same thing more than once.
Mine is up and linked… I’m going to read all the great tales tomorrow! I’m totally blitzed tonight…
Oh dude! I think every girl can relate to this situation a bit. Well, guys can, too. There’s always that one thing we do that seems totally innocent in our minds and then BAM! Completely taken the wrong way and now there is some serious back-peddling involved. Because of this lovely post, I am now doing SOS this week. You gave me a great idea for a post!
Haha, that reminds me so much of the kind of letters I got from my High School Sweetheart when I was in boot camp!
I’ll be back to read this tomorrow. Here is my link for this week:
http://summersnook.com/2007/08/26/lucy-furr-part-iii/
Thanks!
Silly Brillig, kissing an envelope! hahahahahahaha!
Um, I am sure I don’t have to tell you, but boys? They just think differently than girls…
funny SOS!
Whoa… that was a big oops! I learned long after high school that a guy who was in love or in lust with me lost his virginity because he *heard* that I had and wanted to be as experienced as I was in case we ever got together… and I SO had not, lol! Ugh… guys and their interpretations of things.
Another (very funny!) lesson in being wary of whatever might lurk in the hearts & minds of men.
Oooooh man. Once again another detail in the story I had completely forgotten about!
I am loving you going through old stuff and finding all of these letters! It makes me regret sending my letters from a certain missionary (could it POSSIBLY be the same guy????) away in anger one day. Hahahah.
OOOPPS! The sound of another Brillig heartbreak! Love the SOS!
Ooops! I love it. Sending mixed messages. I wonder if I’ve ever done that. I’m going to have to think about it a my story, at least in my archives, is coming to a close.
Happy Day!
Oops is right. I don’t think I ever had that inadvertent effect on anyone, cause nobody was interested in me in the first place. Ha!
Sigh. We’ve all been there (on both sides, probably)…
oops - poor silly bloke!
oh I’ll just bet there was a fevered pitch!
Oh, sweetie! Sometimes you just can’t win, can you?
My entry is finally up… sorry it’s late.
That is so funny! I remember back in high school when some poor boys heard the dreaded phrase “you’re a really good friend” way too many times. I often wonder what happened to some of these “good friends” (if any women eventually deemed them dateable or if they just gave up and decided life would be easier playing for the other team).
Oh Brillig…we know you’re just a great big tease!;)
Ouch! Being an accidental heart breaker doesn’t sound like much fun.
ooops is right.
oooops says it all.
actually, it isn’t so much your mistake but really the fact that you are so cute and irressistable that it would make any friend misinterpret the kiss marks.
I loved this! AND I have to share. My senior year in h.s. boyfriend was Mormon, and we ended up going to different colleges. When he was in Japan for two years for his mission, we were penpals. Emphasis on PALS. But, apparently that was one-sided, because when he returned from his mission, mutual friends held a welcome back party for him and I arrived to murmurs of “There’s Jen…do you think she’ll get proposed to tinight?” Akward. To say the least.
Whoops.
Did you write back and explain, or act like it got lost in the post and tell him all about your new man?
Oh Brillig, you heartbreaker!
Great story!
This SO reminded me of my own misson days: everyone reading all kinds of things into the spaces between the lines…you little vixen, you!
Sorry I missed SOS this week; my conference was terrific, but all-consuming, and re-entry into real life has been its usual bumpy self…hopefully I’ll get things together this week…and stop over-using ellipses….
LOVE your Soap Opera Sundays! I am always late to get into it and this time I had electrical issues. Please accept this as an SOS but if it doesn’t meet the bill I am ok with that too
I have a hard time keeping up with the things I want to document each day and coming up with anything close to what you and your fellow SOSers do is a difficult task indeedy.
Thank you soo much for your kind words on my blog. I truly get such a kick out of what you say!
http://mommas-world.blogspot.com/2007/08/you-are-not-dead.html
Such a heart breaker huh?
when my husband lived on board ship in the navy, I would spray each letter or card down with perfume. He said all the guys would tease him, but they would always hang out at his locker, saying he was so lucky. lol
“[she] played with his heaaaart, got lost in the game (oh baby, baby) Oops, [he] thinks [she’s] in love, been sent from abooooooooove…[she’s] not. that. innocent.”
Haha…closet Spears fan here (Old skool - not this trainwreck she became).
I always had a problem with leading guys on…but not with letters.
At first…when I read LDS church, I thought it said LSD Church and I thought…wow. What is Brillig into? Then I quickly realized my momentary bout of dyslexia and Yes… I do know what LDS stands for.
lmao I was once told by a boy that I went to school with that saying “we can still be friends” is one of the harshest things a girl can say to a boy..lmao.
Brillig… have I mentioned that I want to see pictures of you?