Luvletterz.com
Season One, Episode Two
By Nathaniel Davis
Copyright © 2012 by Nathaniel Davis
Smashwords Edition
This book is a work of fiction conceived entirely in my overactive imagination. Any resemblance to real people, alive or dead, is strictly coincidental or used fictitiously.
The author holds all rights to the material contained in this book (including the cover art).
Follow Nathaniel Davis on Twitter @NDavisMedia
Or Online at www.NathanielDavisMedia.com
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Episode Two:
The First Customer
There’s one redeeming factor in working (besides payday, of course. One time I actually went on a job orientation and the man presiding over the program asked why we were there. I raised my hand and gave the canned response “for the experience.” Some others gave some kiss-up crap replies. Finally he got tired of listening to us and said, “you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t need the money. You’re here for the paycheck.” It was true and honest. That’s my answer now every time I have a job interview and someone asks me why I want to work there). For me, that redemption was at 4 o’clock on Friday afternoon. That was the time when I was released from the drudgery of the dead end job for 63 and a half hours. Usually I began counting down the hours on Monday morning when I would show up for work at 7:30. That countdown changed from counting down the hours to counting down the minutes on Friday (there are 510 minutes from 7:30AM - 4:00PM). By about 3:00 the minutes turned to seconds (3600 seconds in that last hour). I really liked going home!
It was on a Friday at work when I got my first customer. I was sitting in our lunchroom with Brian eating my lunch (sandwich, chips, and soda. Nothing special) when my smartphone sounded an alert that I had a new email message.
“Huh?” I said as I looked at my phone. The message was in my business email inbox. I set it up earlier in the week when I started the luvletterz.com website.
“What?” Brian asked.
“Somebody actually wants me to write for them.” I was just as surprised as anyone that I actually had gotten a request for help.
Brian didn’t look surprised. Getting a new job from my website was his vindication for thinking up such a successful enterprise. “I told you it would work. What’s he want?”
This was a strange one. “It’s some lawyer in California. There’s a woman in a partner firm that he’s attracted to, but he just can’t seem to make it work. He keeps asking her out, and she keeps refusing him. He knows that he just has to say the right thing, but he doesn’t know what the right thing to say is. He wants to write her a card, poem, or something, but when he sits down to write he keeps drawing a blank and can’t think of anything to say. He’s willing to pay $300 if I can get him something by Sunday evening as he’s going to see her Monday and he wants to finally make it work.”
My first thought when I read it was: ‘Give up. How many times is she going to have to refuse your advances before you finally get the point? She’s obviously not interested. There’s a time to seek, and a time to give up as lost. Move on. Find someone who’s worth your time and attention…’ (I could go on and on for hours on men who refuse to give up and move on. Show some pride, grow a pair, and have enough respect for yourself to be with someone who genuinely wants to be with you! I once knew a guy who dated this chick off and on for only a few months. Key here: only a few months. It wasn’t like they had been married for years. It was a few months. She decided she didn’t want to see him again, and he was still moping over it and hoping she’d come back three years later! That’s two-and-a-half years or more longer than they had been together. That’s seriously disturbed. Some people are just plain crazy and obsessive. This guy sounded like one of those people). I don’t get paid to tell him that, though. I get paid to write, so I was going to write him something (though I seriously doubted it would succeed. But I was determined not to be the one responsible for his eminent failure). Plus, I liked the price. $300 can buy you a lot of beer. I could write him something that would be winning and stunning for $300 without even blinking.
Brian didn’t share my optimism, though. “You can’t write anything that will be successful unless you know more about the woman.”
Why did he always have to think about everything before he began? I hate thinking. When I was a kid and I would get a new toy I would start taking it apart immediately. Pieces would start flying everywhere. I’d lose most of them. Rarely, if ever, could I figure out how to put it back together. When I was older I started doing that with my cars. It’s a curse in that it gets me into a lot of unnecessary trouble. It’s a blessing in that it keeps my life from getting boring and makes me someone that you just want to sit down and have a beer with. I just like to see and react with everything I have. Jump first, look later. “Of course I can. Why?”
“So you’re telling me that you’d write the same thing to a 25-year-old intern that you would to a 45-year-old successful attorney?”
Hadn‘t thought that she could‘ve been an intern. That would make a hell of a lot more sense. Brian was a genius. “Why not?”
“Because women are all different. A 45-year-old woman has been around longer. She’s more accomplished. She’s not young, innocent, and naive. You have to do your homework first or this man will fail and you’ll get nothing.”
I may not have liked hearing what he had to say, but he had a point. While to me women are all the same, the fact is that it isn’t exactly true (men are all the same. There‘s a reason there is only one Y chromosome in existence and every man has one). I had an easy time getting women with daddy issues. You get a woman with daddy issues and you don’t ever have to raise your game. You can just listen to them, treat them well, and then they’ll think you’re the greatest thing to ever have been born with an appendage between your legs. Think about it. Compared to their loser dad you’re the greatest man to ever have lived. When the competition is sub par, it’s easy to win. They’re usually a little messed up and distrusting, however (which probably explains why my relationships don’t generally last too long), but to get them or their attention is not hard. If this woman was what Brian described I would really have to step up my game. It was at this moment that a flush of fear came over me. Fear that I had gotten myself in a little too deep. I was actually going to have to step up to the plate and up my game a little bit.
“O.K.,” I told Brian. I was typing my reply to the man as I talked. “I replied to him that I would be happy to help him, but I need a little more information first. I needed to know a little bit about the woman; Age, likes, dislikes, whether or not she was already seeing someone. You think that sounds good?”
“I think that’s a good start.” He stopped to think for a second. “You should ask how involved they are or have been in the past.”
“Why?”
“Well, if they’ve been off and on for years your chances of success are much lower than if he’s just going to surprise her.”
Good point. I decided to add that to my request for information. I sent him an email in reply and within the hour he had replied with the information I had requested. She is in her mid 40’s, without children, and recently divorced. He apparently had helped her a little bit following the divorce, but they have never been on an actual “date” (his word, not mine). He then reminded me that she keeps turning him down when he asks her out. That was all he really could or would provide me.
My first thought then was how direct he has been with her. There’s one thing that frustrates me to no end, and that’s subtlety. Why can’t people just come out and actually say what it is they’re thinking? Instead they speak in these insane riddles. He probably imagined he was asking her out when in actuality she probably thought something else. He probably asked her if she was hungry or liked Thai food and she responded negatively, so to not get hurt he decided to walk away with his tail between his legs and sulk. That’s what subtle people do. They sulk and pout when you don’t get their point. Maybe you’d get it and possibly agree with them if they ever just came right out and said exactly and clearly what it was that was in their mind. Hit me over the head with it. I don’t care. Just don’t make me try and figure you out. Worse yet is when people transfer their feelings onto others. If you don’t like something, tell me ‘I don’t like that’. I’m a big boy. I can take it that you don’t always share my opinion. Don’t start talking about all of these people who don’t like something and cry and moan about it. Sure it keeps you from being vulnerable and wrong. Take a chance by putting yourself out there. At least you can say you tried. In reading the things this man had written to me I concluded that he’s extremely vague, hates to make himself vulnerable, and never likes to be wrong. I had my work cut out for me.
“So, did that guy write you back?” Brian asked me while we were on our afternoon break.
“He did.” I really didn’t want to talk about it.
Brian did want to talk about it, though. “What did he say?”
“She’s mid 40‘s, divorced, no kids, keeps turning him down. Same old stuff.”
Brian was getting great amusement out of this. “You have no clue what you’re going to say to this woman, do you?” He was laughing.
“I have ideas.” I never really thought in concrete plans. I had a purpose not a plan. The difference is that a purpose is an end result. I really don’t care how I get there. As long as I achieve the desired result I was happy. Most people think in plans. They become so concerned with how they’re going to get there that they forget about where they’re going. I knew that right or wrong I was going to write something for this man and it was going to be in his inbox by the 7PM Sunday deadline. That was all I really cared about. What happened between now and then couldn’t be less important to me.
“You really should talk to a woman who could be similar to this woman to get ideas.”
That was a good idea. There was one problem, though. “Do I look like I know a lot of successful women in their 40’s?” It wasn’t like we went to the same parties.
“You don’t have to.” Another one of our coworkers had been listening to our conversation. His name is Jason. Jason was a cool dude. Drove a nice vintage Mustang. Worked out. Took nutritional supplements so he could get better muscle definition. Walked around with the air of Tom Brady. Men wanted to be him, and women wanted to be with him. Brian knew him a lot better than I did. I could only assume that Brian had told him about my undertaking.