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"Crap Emails From A Dude" Brought To You By A Dude

"But I Am, Incurably, Shallow."

"I Suspect That Rather Than Your Boyfriends Being The 'Bad Element' Of Your Past Relationships, In Some Way You Were"

In movies, a male protagonist is often gifted with the magical power of seeing directly into the soul of a woman with whom he's had virtually no contact. In the real world, however, when a guy purports to do this, words like "stalking" and "armchair psychoanalysis" come to mind. Which, of course, brings us to "Doug" and "Kate," who met in a 2-month training seminar. Doug, naturally, saw his soulmate in her breasts eyes, and asked her out repeatedly, finally inviting her to what she thought was a group event and what turned out to be a one-on-one of cheezy romantic gestures and overplanned scenarios. When she then declined further invitations, he showed up one night unannounced, begging for her to be his girlfriend, and then whining for sex. She turned him down on both counts, but then got her own, personalized psychological profile for free!

Crap Email From A Dude

"Things Could Have Been Fine, Had The Following Events Not Happened…"

"Pierre Connard" was — and doubtless remains — one of those wretched manchildren who is tolerable only because his wretchedness is so clearly borrowed from some book by some guy whose excuse was, "it was satire, silly!" A French, status-obsessed, fashionable freeloader, he met Abigail in grad school during the summer his grandmother died. They spent the following year inseparable, until he decided she wasn't quite wrenchingly beautiful enough or some shit, stopped having sex with her... and moved into her apartment. The next year she finished her master's thesis while he lived off her groceries and accumulated several hundred dollars in debt to her. In April he abruptly left for France, leaving 12 boxes of crap he'd later ask Abigail to mail to him and totally lost all contact. In August, a week or so after the boxes magically disappeared from her house — he'd conned some friend into picking them up — Abigail received this Facebook epic. It is longer than the usual crap email, almost like the beginnings of some sort of novel. Title idea: "Not That Profundis."

"I'm Not Having Sex Right Now Either…"

"Take A Softer, Gentler, And Dare I Say, More Feminine Voice"

I think we've all been in a situation where you are just yourself and are hanging with a dude who seemingly likes "you." Only, the "you" he has in mind has longer hair, or bigger breasts, or is more inclined to wear pink or be demure than you are. But, you know, he knows if you just changed these small details about yourself, if you just saw it his way, you'd be perfect. And that brings us to "Dave". Dave really totally likes Jezebel, you know, but he has some gentle suggestions about how we should be less off-putting and strident — you know, be more girly. Softer! Gentler! Like a girl blog 'should' be! Gosh, I think we are totally going to take that under advisement.

"This Bottling Of Emotions Is Called Acting, And Perhaps Advanced Make-Believe"

"I Could Be Writing To Tell You Your Feature Is Tasteless, Promotes Sexism, And Secures Its Readership By Offering Slanderous And Sensationalized Accounts…"

People often wonder what the fallout of a Crap Email is like. We don't often know! This guy contacted us once, thinking his ex-girlfriend had changed her name to Anna Holmes, even though her name was not Anna; when he finally figured out the deal he good-naturedly defended his doghouse-building skills and retreated back into his proverbial own. Truthfully, he seemed really nice, and I felt a little bad. The same cannot be said for "Christopher Davis," the Ayn Rand prostrating author of last week's "I Am, Right Now, Involved In Something More Important," which many of you felt to be the Douchiest Email Of All Time. Here is definitive proof it was not! A tale told in two parts: one note sent to his ex girlfriend after discovering his Crap Email on our site, one sent to us. (And yes, I bought Ayn Rand's journals last weekend and have been crafting a primer on why she is to be avoided. Although that will seem rather unnecessary in a moment.)

"I Am, Right Now, Involved In Something More Important"

"Keep The CDs. They, Like My Former Love For You, Mean Nothing To Me Now."

Okay, first I should probably explain the picture, which depicts Su Dongpo aka Su Shi, a legendary Chinese poet and Renaissance Man (well, it was before the Renaissance but you could call him a "Soong Dynasty Man" I guess) whose melancholy love poems I vaguely remember reading back at some point when I read stuff, and for some reason I couldn't get it out of my head that I wanted to depict a Chinese poet here, because "Sarah's" friend who sent me this amazing email told me very little about its sender, "Jun," except that he was well-educated and Chinese. And for good reason: this email is so fucking spectacular additional context would almost spoil it, except you should know that they'd been broken up for three months without contact, and that it was preceded an hour earlier by an email casually inquiring about some CDs he'd left at her house. Oh, man.

"I Do Know That You Will Kill Me If I Slip On Anything… That's Why I'm Afraid Of You Haha."

"Though, As Most Analytical Perfectionistic Minds Do, I Find Myself Going Over The Many Flaws Caused By My Nervousness, Lack Of Antiquate Dancing Ability…"

Welcome back to Crap Email From A Dude, where the names are made up but the 24-point signature files and commensurately-inflated senses of self-importance are real! Marcel met Lidia in a theology class and he asked her to a dance. She accepted, and he thew in a trip to meet his parents in the suburbs as a bonus. On the way, he talked about "him. And his life. And his future. His parents lived in the middle of nowhere - I started wondering if I would be kidnapped." No such luck! They went to the dance. It was "uneventful." Well, that's how she saw things anyway…as this email displays, no two people can ever really experience the same narrative. Lidia broke things off after learning about his criminal record, but she owes a debt of gratitude to Marcel, who in the space of two dates taught her the enduring lesson: there was never a case of self-loathing so bad it interfered with a dude's central self-obsession! (Or, for that matter, inspired a spell check.)

"You Had Me Over To Your House Once. Yes, I Remembered Your Address."

Jenna, 29, met Theo, 31, at a convention. They got drunk, and had sex. And he cried — well, sobbed, if you want to get technical. Because it was "so beautiful." Was it possible she'd actually found someone who liked her TOO much? Not wanting to fall prey to the whole "falling for assholes" scam, she dutifully had sex with him again. And again he cried! And in an unusual bid to exert hegemony over her RAM, proceeded to commence a rigorous regimen of contacting her simultaneously via as many distinct modes of communication possible. She knew it was over the day he conveyed his fondness via text message, personal email, work email, instant message, Facebook wall post, Flickr comment and phone call within five short hours. She told him it was over the day he sent more than twenty text messages. And he cried — and began communicating her via mail. He sent a basket of blueberry jams and concert tickets to her work. Then he sent PHOTOS OF HER APARTMENT to her house. As you can imagine, Jenna has quite the crap arsenal, but these two specimens — sent within a day of one another after she did not reply — give you an idea. Is it commentary on my deficient movie knowledge or media misogyny that I can't think of a male pop cultural figure whose image does justice to this guy?

"I Have Two Women Who Love Me..."

This email is brief, but only because it omits words that are needless to indict its own crap. Its sender is Jim, an underemployed poet in Portland, and we received it from Jessie, a gainfully-employed poet in Portland, after Jessie embarked upon a romance with Jim, a longtime friend. Jim and Jessie had sought solace in one another's arms in early February after breaking off very long-term relationships, Jim with a poet named Simone who had moved to San Francisco to pursue a professorship eight months earlier. (Jim had not wanted to move.) Jessie knew that Jim still had feelings for Simone, but respected Jim's right to mourn the relationship privately, and the new relationship seemed to be proceeding with promise. Then on Tuesday...

Truth In Advertising

"Future Emails From You Will Be Deleted Unread"

Sometimes we get an email we're compelled to run for the sheer fun of flouting intellectual property laws. Felicia met Dave, a fiftysomething professor and writer, on Nerve. Two days before they were supposed to meet, she rescheduled. (See, she had this friend, and the friend got suddenly hospitalized with pneumonia, and the friend happened to be sick with terminal lung cancer, soooo.) So anyway: he agreed, they made a date a few days later; he did that thing where he didn't show up and turned off his cell phone to avoid the confrontation; then he emailed to apologize, and so she suggested that maybe they could meet at a bar near her house, at which point he went kind of apeshit. Why so "weirdly specific"? he wanted to know. Did he honestly ever expect her to come to Brooklyn? Was she going to make it worth his while? Shouldn't SHE come to HIS neighborhood, seeing as it was her friend's terminal illness responsible for fucking up the whole dynamic in the first place? She did not think so, and told him as much, at which point...

The Best Email I Have Ever Received

There are no facts, only interpretations, and if you comprehend an interpretation to its very depths you're likely to change your mind about it, as I have on occasion on this blog when challenged on one of the metaphors, metonyms and anthroporphisms marching around in the mobile mind army of thoughts and variables I falsely perceive to make up some sort of truth, which you may perceive to be a long-winded preamble to telling you I received an email Wednesday evening from a certain individual I'd described upon very little scrutiny as "amusingly pretentious," in a post of earlier this week. Was it unfair? Why not leave judgment to the herd?

"I'm Definitely Not Interested In Trying To Meet Up Again, Especially Since You Succeeded In Making A Pretty Bad First Impression."

Post traumatic stress disorder is not a joke, folks! So: "Jessica" went out for a first Match.com date last night. Nervous, she waited at the bar with two of her female friends till he arrived. Wrong move! As soon as she said goodbye to them, he was...out the door. She received the following email this morning. It not the crappiest email, but it is remarkable in its aggressive meanness. Quantico, so you know, is a military base in Virginia, and their appointed meeting spot was Washington, D.C. She could, to be sure, have arranged to meet him closer to his work, like at the nearby outlet mall! But would that have been enough to please this PTSD case? Sigh. A Crap Email from yet another specimen of collateral damage of this pointless war, after the jump.

"That's Not To Say I'm Not Impressed, And Even A Bit Envious Of The Size Of Your Balls"

OMG scummmmmm. Really, you don't need to know more. But okay, Marlie and Paul work together. At a law firm, natch. She got this email yesterday afternoon after saying that she wouldn't be averse to going on a date with Paul, if that was what he was hinting around about — because that was obviously what he was hinting around about. Sounds like harmless workplace flirting, no? Watch Paul till the situation into his personal breeding ground for the ultimate neg! Oh Paul, any girl who gives credence to your wild delusions of studliness is only doing so because you make it impossible for any of them to actually care about you to a sufficient degree that they'd have enough interest in your long-term emotional strength to set you right. And I have a feeling that includes Jennifer.

Crap Email From A Crazy

"My Blood Began To Boil. I Could Feel The Veins Throbbing On The Side Of My Head."

Late last night I received a submission to "Crap Email From A Dude" ...from a dude. It was about a girl, and I really didn't think it was as "crap" as he made it out to be, but he seemed very perturbed so I read through it a little closer. And then, as sometimes happens when it's 2 a.m. and I can't believe I am still reading my damn work email, I got a little irritated — and wrote "Chad" back as to why I thought the girl, "Mary," had written what she did. "Wow, you are really warped and twisted!" Chad wrote back this morning. And while I can't really argue with THAT, I did wonder what you guys would think. Hey! It's Friday! Welcome to a fun, interactive, "He Said She Said, She Said" edition of Crap Email From A Dude.

"I Make Reference To Stephan the MySpace Guy, Jeff Jacobs, fitnessguy@yahoo.com And Anthony Williams Because...A Pattern Of Inappropriate Conduct"

Last week the Center for Public Integrity released a list of 935 separate falsehoods the Administration had told the public to get us to go along with the war in Iraq. This week, Matt Perkins swiped the idea and went to work compiling a (slightly lengthier) dossier of possible and probable falsehoods told by his girlfriend Crystal while he was away at said war. It's long but impressive; insane but hilarious; and like war, a story that sort of demands an appreciation for nuance if you're going to slog through its most depressing periods. Oh yes, and he sent it not only to his ex-girlfriend, but the current guy she MIGHT be seeing. Dear Matt, if you're reading, download this and don't ever question a girl's rape story again esp since you work for motherfucking BLACKWATER. And dear Crystal: don't fuck dude with emails like "fitnessguy@yahoo." Okay, and without further ado, a very, very crap email from a soldier...

"It Was A Risk — Dating You. Risking My Reputation. Where Was Respect For That?"

For three weeks before she moved to Southern California from San Francisco, Meredith dated Paul. "Un-exclusively." And because it is inevitably in those situations when a girl believes that she is entering an unambiguously noncommittal no-strings fling that she finds a guy who is ready to purchase adjacent cemetery plots with her, she had to break it off a few days before she left. He didn't exactly take it lightly. But it wasn't until she told him that an ex-boyfriend of hers with whom she was still friends would be helping her move — and I'm sorry, in situations like this you almost have to call up any borderline sane ex you have, just to assure you that the vast incongruity in your respective levels of perceived intimacy isn't an outgrowth of you having no soul — that Paul really went nuts, texting Meredith that she was "evil" and "a dirty little slut." (She writes: "He also used the phrase "for shame.") Shame indeed!

"You're Not Carly Simon, And I'm No Joe Dirt, You Can't Say There Was Never Nothing — You Can't Tell Me You Never Hurt"

This crap email was less "crap" than "pure gold." I mean, there's definitely something crap about the way that even when they are doing ostensibly good, like expressing sincere contrition, dudes have this mindbogglingly conceited ability to overestimate their importance. So yeah, if you, like Anne, broke up with your high school boyfriend Brad in 1998 and maybe it ended badly but you hadn't really thought about it much since, you might feel a twinge annoyed if he sent you some slobbering apology via MySpace nine years later. But then you'd read the email, and you'd fall in love all over again because Holy Fuckery you cannot FAKE poetry this bad. It comes from the heart. Oh, Brad. Sigh.