Some Letters I've Been Meaning to Write

Dear Dude Outside the Shady Bar:

While it is no doubt flattering that you felt the need to stop me as I was walking home from work and make me take my earphones out just so you could tell me about how gorgeous you thought I was, this sort of talk will not make me drop my panties on the sidewalk and fall into your arms. I’m not sure what you thought you were accomplishing. I’m also not sure why you thought it was okay to be completely bombed at five o’clock in the afternoon on a Monday. It clearly instilled in you the false sense of confidence you may or may not have been going for, but such behavior in no way increases your chances of “hitting that.”

What’s more, the shady bar outside of which you were standing is probably the only place in my neighborhood I’m afraid of. It’s nothing against you personally; I just don’t make it a habit of meeting guys at bars that have no sign out front, peeling paint, fogged windows, and a front door that stays locked unless you know how to get in. In fact, I normally avoid that street corner altogether (you and your friends do an awful lot of shouting out there), but I happened to take a different bus home that day, and I had to walk by it/you on the way home to my apartment. Where I live with my boyfriend.

In summary, sir, I recognize and respect that you did your best to bring class to the situation by using the words “gorgeous” and “beautiful” instead of “hot,” “sexy,” or any form of the word “daaaaamn.” I especially appreciated the part where you told me that I was so beautiful, you’d do anything even just to be my friend. Somehow, though, I think that might not be completely true, and though your words were classy, the situation was not.

P.S. You may want to apologize to your extremely embarrassed friend who was with you at the time as well.

Dear Fifteen-Year-Old Walking With Your Friends:

First off, telling me you’re seventeen doesn’t make me any more likely to go out with you than I would be if you told me the much younger truth about your age. Come back to me when you think you can pull of telling people you’re at least twenty-one.

Now that that’s out of the way, I want to tell you that I recognize the amount of balls it must have taken to leave the group of friends with whom you were walking the opposite way down the street from me, turn around, cross the street, and approach me. But if you’re going to go through all that, you should at least have prepared a better opening line than “What’s yo name?” (I lied, by the way: my name isn’t Laura. Sorry, but you very randomly approached me on that stretch of South Street that’s kind of shady and has no street lights, so I was a little worried.) I must admit, the rest of your scripted conversation material was above average: telling me you go to Drexel and then engaging me in an academic discussion is, I admit, a better route to my heart than most.

But I need to explain something to you. I understand if you don’t know this rule. You’ve only just begun to play the game. You just need to know that when you ask someone out and she turns you down with any form of the words “I have a boyfriend,” that should be the end of it. Telling me “it’s okay, we can just be friends. Doesn’t your boyfriend let you have friends that are guys?” is not even a little bit convincing, and you’re just forcing me to turn you down over and over, which has got to hurt you more than it helps.

I guess it was just that you really didn’t want to return your group of friends with nothing but rejection, especially because I’m sure that just before you approached me, your parting words to them were “Watch me score this chick” (or some updated, non-90s form of that phrase). I do admire your confidence, your determination, and your unwillingness to take no for an answer; however, these are not qualities I find attractive in a mate. Tone it down a little, slugger. Tone it down.

Dear Drunken Man in the Subway:

As with the others, I’ll admit I really was flattered by your taking notice of me. I also want to commend you on your bold, unchecked confidence. Most creeps won’t go beyond turning around to get a glimpse of a woman’s ass as she passes him on the sidewalk. But you, my friend, went above and beyond what was expected of you. My cheeks must have been bouncing up and down merrily as I ran to catch the train, and when I didn’t make it in time you must have been over the moon. My choice to sit down on the bench while I waited for the next train was unfortunate for you, however, because it hid my backside from your view. But you weren’t ready to give up on it.

I know you really thought that you were covert when you sat down next to me on the bench and slowly scooted your way closer to me. Maybe you even thought I didn’t notice the first time I bent down to put my umbrella on the ground, and you leaned back to get a glimpse of the top few inches of my butt. Or maybe you just didn’t care if I noticed. Because after your first reward, you slid even closer, and when I was stupid enough to bend over again to put my drink on the floor, you let out an elated “Hoooo! You got a NICE ass fo’ a white girl!” which I think was a combination of your attempt at a compliment, and your complete inability to censor your own thoughts at this stage in your inebriation. And really, whenever a black man takes notice of my ass (which I’ve never thought of as “nice,” even “for a white girl”), I do feel a pinch of pride. So if this was what you were trying to do—make me feel better after I missed the subway train—then you succeeded.

Where you lost me was when you continued to make comments, even after I learned to stop bending down and simply remained seated on the bench and you had absolutely no way of seeing the thing on which you were commenting. Your compliments lost their credibility then, and I wondered what exactly you were picturing situated between my torso and the subway station bench. Was it something out of a Jay-Z music video? Something firm and bouncy? Because I, as well as everyone else in that subway station, knew this to be a delusion of grandeur. Eventually you, too, must have realized that your dreams were a little too unattainable, because when a couple of beautiful ladies whose rears better fit your fantasy descended the stairway, you left my side to pursue bigger and better butts. I hope you’re as confident sober as you are drunk, my friend, because that sort of pride in yourself can really take you places.