Correspondence July 11, 1987 (cassette tape - tape 2)

Before I became T's pen pal, he had had two other girlfriends. Both of those were long distance relationships (LDRs). The first one was J, and there is a long and complex story associated with how they got together and broke up which I will cover in the book that I'm writing. To provide context for this snippet of a tape that I'm transcribing, I'll say that T lived in California and J lived in Pennsylvania. They came together through a friend who T knew in person in California who was a pen pal of J's at that time.

After listening to J's tapes through this friend, T started to tape J on his own. Through time, he developed a lot of affection for her and wanted to meet her. They eventually met in person and took part in a LDR for about 9 months until T decided to break up with J due to various problems he experienced with the way she handled the relationship. In particular, she played games, lied, and tried to manipulate him.

In this partial transcript, I'm responding to a letter than T wrote me that J had sent him. After their break-up, they had not been friends for some length of time. J had gone off to her next LDR with a different young man ("M") who she viewed in many ways, at least initially, as a better match for her than T. After she and M crashed and burned, she wrote to T and wanted to be friends again. She took responsibility for a lot of the things that went wrong with their relationship in the letter and seemed to be a changed person. T had asked me whether I felt she was being sincere or not and this was my limited analysis:

Select transcript July 11, 1987 (2nd tape):

You read a letter from J that she wrote to you after you broke up (in which) she wanted you to get back together to be friends. You said it was dated Nov. 1, 1985. One thing you said was, "How much of that was a bunch of baloney and how much of it was from the heart?" I don't know if I'd be able to dissect it totally and say, "Well this part sounds like it was sincere and this part doesn't." One of the things I found really interesting was her timing, which was something to the effect that she wrote to you after she broke with M. Now, what that seems to me is that it was real convenient that, while she had M, she didn't need to write to you because her needs were being satisfied by somebody else. 'I'll show you! I have another boyfriend! I don't need you!' That kind of thing.

And then, when he broke up with her, her heart was broken and maybe she started to reconsider how valuable she was as a girlfriend and decided, "Well, T was good to me and maybe he'll take me back or be friends with me at least to help soothe my wounds." I think her timing was very interesting. As far as being sincere, and her admitting she was wrong... In the back of her mind, I'm sure that she was still blaming you and thinking that you were a terrible bastard for what you did. 

By the same token, she never seemed to me to be very pleased with you the way you were anyhow. She didn't like the way you were physically and she would say things like you should go lift weights, and that she was intimidated by you (intellectually), or, those kinds of things. If she felt that way, you would think that in the back of her mind, at least in some small quarter of her mind, she would be relieved that you just shut it off before it became anymore awkward for her than it obviously was. She didn't like the confrontation. If she didn't like the idea of moving to California which you said that you'd move to Pennsylvania... Did you say you'd move for her? She didn't like your smoking marijuana, those kinds of things. If there was so much about you that she didn't approve of then how could it be so traumatic for her to lose you?

I still doubt that you can unconditionally love someone—which is what I call "pure love"—which is the only circumstance under which you should marry somebody—if you unconditionally love them. You love them and you have no desire whatsoever to change (him) and you want nothing more from other than the same kind of love in return. That's what I think perfect marriages are built upon. If you go into it wanting to change, you're in trouble.

To me, it just seems like she was so far away from having that... I don't know. I really don't know.

*****

After getting to know T, and falling in love with him, I felt that neither J nor his second girlfriend A were "worthy" of his attention. J's main issues were that he was too thin and not muscular enough for her on a physical level and that she didn't like his way of directly discussing problems when they had them. She was more inclined toward the silent treatment or dropping topics of contention. She also felt that he was trying to show off his intelligence when he talked about things she was not knowledgeable about or used words that she was unfamiliar with. This was not the case as T was very intelligent, but was not inclined to use his intellect to talk down to anyone. J was very insecure and what she wanted was some buff beefcake that stood by her and made other women admire her and who wasn't sufficiently smart to make her feel dumb.

It's important to note that I also did not feel worthy of T and was not necessarily thinking those girlfriends were inferior whereas I was more on his level. The main difference was how I saw us each as unworthy. I saw J as unworthy in terms of her honesty (as she had so little of it), her values (which were so shallow), and her intellect (which was average). I saw A as unworthy in terms of her appreciation of the attention she got from T during their relationship since she was constantly trying to get him to send her less communication and I saw her as unworthy in terms of her physical affection levels (as she didn't like to be touched and wasn't especially sexual). For myself, I felt inferior in terms of social and economic status as well as my body. I felt that being fat meant that I was immediately of greatly lesser value than T. This was, after all, the mantra that had been drummed into me nearly ever day of my life since about age 10. 

Correspondence July 11, 1987 (cassette tape - tape 1)

The numbers on both tapes were written by T. I slapped my shorter labels over the top of his, but the one that covered side 1 fell off a long time ago revealing his handwriting.

On July 6, 1987, T called me on the phone for the first time. He did this with the help of a little sleuthing as he called me while I was at work and didn't have the phone number. What he had was the name of the city I was working in at the time and the social services agency that had employed me. The call cost him 45 cents a minute. In 2015, that was equivalent to 97 cents per minute. It was a steep price to pay to talk to me in real time, but I was thrilled that he had done so.

My little office in a converted former funeral home did not receive calls directly so the secretary in the main office intercepted and transferred them. She wasn't the brightest bulb and seemed to have some hearing comprehension issues to boot. When she told me someone was on the line for me, I didn't know that it was T despite her giving me a name.

Select transcript July 11, 1987 (tape 1):

Let me begin by telling you how much I really, I mean I already said this, this'll be the third time I said it, I already said it once on the phone, once in a card, and now on tape, how much I truly and sincerely appreciated the call that you gave me at work. I mean now my tone is down quite a bit from when I got the call, but after I got it, I ran down to the secretary and I said, "That was one of my friends from California! Oh my God, I can't believe it!" And then I was so excited that you called that I said, "I'm too excited to work!" So I walked up to the post office and mailed the tapes that I was going to send you. 

I made them all on Sunday and I planned on mailing them on Tuesday when I got off of work. I can leave work sometimes* and walk to stores and walk to the post office obviously or I wouldn't have mailed that one package of yours from (city where I worked). But, I was so hyped that I had to do something so I trotted on up to the post office which is a nice quarter-mile hike there and another quarter-mile back. It's decent exercise. 

The really funny part was when the secretary answered the phone, she must've got your name wrong or the connection must've been bad or something because she said-she buzzed me up in my office... She goes, "T--off" T--olof". I didn't know who the hell she was talking about. If I had known that it was you, you wouldn't have been on hold for about the 20 seconds that you were on hold. I would have got on that phone a lot quicker. I didn't know who it was when I picked up the phone. I thought, "Gee I wonder... " It did flicker through my my mind, but I thought, "Nah, it couldn't be." 

But, I was so happy for you to do that. Nobody's ever done that for me. Very few people have even called me here at my home let alone called me at work. Wow! I know it was no big deal to you... well, I don't know if it was a big deal to you or not. I guess 45 cents a minute should have been a big deal to you. I just want you to know that if you ever feel like doing that again, I'll appreciate it just as much.

In connection with this, people calling people-to me-it's always a very special thing when a pen pal calls or anybody calls long distance whether it be a pen pal or a friend or whatever because they're paying for it and they're paying quite a bit. You can do it on tape all the time and it's just an extra special thing (to be called on the phone). I have a question for you because I'm going to relay an experience. Have you ever called somebody and not had a good reaction other than A? I don't know because, from what you've told me, there have been times when A-I don't know, you say that the calls go well regardless of what sort of mood A is in-so I better not say regardless of A. 

Have you ever called anybody long distance and gotten a really bad reaction like they don't even want to talk to you because I've had this happen to me twice and it's been the same person. (Story about how I called a mutual pen pal and she ended the call or put me off each time.)

...

I don't know how it goes with you and long distance calls, but it's very, very rare that somebody that somebody calls me and I make sure that I end the call because I have something to do. I may at some point say, "Oh, geez, should I cut this short so that your bill's not going to be ten stories high," because I do have concern for that. I know that I didn't have too much concern for that when you called the second time.** Yeah, let's keep him on the line! For the most part, if I'm going to say anything about the length of the conversation, it's going to be out of concern for their financial welfare, but realistically, maybe I shouldn't mention that. It may be in poor manners, but I do care about the people who call me and I do care that they've been on the line with me for an hour and a half. Even though I've been enjoying it tremendously, it's just sometimes difficult when you make a call to end it because it just goes well sometimes.


*Generally, I had to be present at my workplace at all times. One program worker was obliged to be present when clients were in the residential facility. We could only leave if someone else from the office was present to "babysit" the clients. My boss or another worker would usually give me a break for a short walk or a breather during my 24-hour shift so that I could get out for at least a little while each day that I worked so that I did not have to be cooped up in the house for the entire day.

**T wanted to talk to me longer than he could initially because I had work responsibilities, so he called initially then called me back later. There were two separate calls, but the initial intention was for there to be one call.

*****

These days, I've been told that people not only do not appreciate phone calls, but actively would like to avoid receiving them. One of my friends said he rarely or never picks up when people call him and prefers that they text him or leave a voice mail. It seems incredibly ironic that those of us acting at a distance so valued talking with one another in real time that were willing to pay significant amounts of money to do so. These days, people can do it for free and do not want this happy privilege. It seems like we devalue and take things for granted because they are free or cheap and easy.