An Open Letter To Receiving Room Guy (Update #3)

Dear Receiving Room Guy:

If you’re reading this, it’s because I told you I wrote about you on my blog. How many people read it? Nevermind that, everyone thinks you’re great! You say, “How could they think I’m great because of a single blog post?” Well, that’s funny. There’s been some content. It’s kind of a thing right now but it’s going to blow over.

We need to get two things straight right now:

1. I am not psychotic.
2. I am not asking you out.

I implore you to let me explain.

I’m a writer. I write about stuff I see and how I feel about it. One of the things I write is this blog. Often, Receiving Room Guy (I know your name but would never use it without your permission), what I see is people and how I feel about those people is interested. I don’t mean romantically interested; I mean that I am interested in a person’s funny jacket, the contents of their grocery basket, the particular tone in their voice when they said goodbye on a rainy day. These sorts of things never fail to surprise me and surprise is the curious person’s reward. I am a curious person and the world is full of rewards if you look for them.

I’m particularly curious about the encounters I have with people because though there are some real jerks out there, most people are terrific and will make you laugh, think hard, or just feel like a part of the human race.

My encounters with you fall into the “terrific” category – and they have also surprised this curious person, Receiving Room Guy. This is all your fault, when you think about it. You can’t be a pleasant, intelligent new person working in my building who also plays a guitar on the clock who also looks like the guy on the poster in the Louis Vuitton window on Michigan Avenue without me wanting to write about you. So I did. As you now know.

But after posting yesterday, I realized I had done a terrible thing. Unless I write this post to you and come clean about this, we can never go beyond talking about the weather – and for a curious person, nothing could be worse. Talking about the weather is like death. Actually, it’s worse. I would much, much rather talk about death than the weather. But if we leave behind the weather, it won’t be too long after that that I will want to tell you I’m a writer and that I write a blog and maybe you’d like to read it?

Under the circumstances, this would be bad. Unless I confess.

If I don’t tell you about all this, we’ll never go any deeper than, “Hey” and “Hey” and “Do you want these pancakes?” and “I have band practice.” We can do better than that. That’s why I gave you my card and told you to read my blog and why, when I said it, I looked at you with a look on my face that said, “I am going to put my head in the oven, now.”

Receiving Room Guy, I never meant to creep you out. I’ve been called plenty of things, but I have never been called “creepy.” And for the record, I feel a little weird – okay, a lot weird – about kinda objectifying you, though if comparing a person to a Greek God is a punishable offense, I give up. I just wanted to write about my life. You’re in my life. Aren’t you so glad?

A brief word on #2:

You are highly ask-outable, which I’m sure you realize, but I have a number of very good reasons why a drink with you, like that, is not on this particular woman’s mind. My reasons for not wanting that are so many and so good, that if there were awards given out for good reasons – The Good Reason Awards – I would clean up. I would be giving acceptance speeches with mascara running down my face every five seconds for all my good reasons. So don’t worry about that. We’re cool.

Are we cool? Are you okay? How are you doing right now? I ordered something from Jet. I’m going to have to get it at some point. I am legitimately going to avoid you for a couple days, though.

However, if you feel like watching a blog post go viral, text me. People will freak if there’s an Update #4.

Sincerely,
Mary