As far as the quality of that letter, I’m sure you ARE aware that John Henry personally knows Stephen King…?

you do make a great point in that I can’t imagine anyone in the community being at this point in their lives so the typical approaches don’t work. The community seems to be made up mostly of geeks and losers, the downtrodden, the wretched of the earth who are out to prove something. I remember how you once said that when you initially came in you wanted to emotionally damage as many women as possible. I think that’s probably lurking somewhere in my motives too at this point. I would guess that probably a large number of community guys feel that way too given the number of people who come in with “I was in a great relationship until she cheated on me” story.

But anyways like you said, he’s not looking for a SNL or a FB. He seems to be world-weary and looking for emotional fulfillment. If the goals are different, can the methods really be faulted? For the record, I thought the letter was atrocious and Keats’ worm-eaten bones probably did a triple lutz but I suppose that direct interest survived that.

But at any rate, I don’t think the marriage can be conclusive as to whether it “worked” or not. We really have no idea what’s going on or what kind of guy Henry is from just this letter. The sample size is just way too small.

Obviously, there’s a lot more going on here. Keep in mind they’d already met and probably flirted a lot. For all we know she could have been all over his nuts before he sent this.

And again, you have to remember this is an email going on between an older man and an older woman so classic ideas of “chodey” behavior don’t necessarily apply. “Chodey” behavior is when you put a woman on a pedestal and worship her. He’s not doing this. He’s retaining his power. He’s basically say, “I like you,” in a fancy and beautiful way.

Don’t underestimate connection and love game.

That said, it’s really not that hard to field test. Send this email to the hot girl in the office, or random girl who you picked up last week. It’s pretty much a copy paste email that would require only 1 or 2 tweaks. Maybe I’ll send it to some of my dead numbers and blog about it.

“A man may not need as much as he thinks he does, but courage and honesty should be acknowledged. I am not so naive as to believe I actually possess the qualities you attribute to me. But thank you.”