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.

Correspondence June 17, 1987 (cassette tape)

On this tape, I do something which was very common for our network of pen friends to do. I inform him a bit about my personal history. With my mothers noisy dog barking at me for attention and her even noisier bird banging on its cage and shrieking in the background, I did my best to let him know who I was at that moment by telling him more about who I once was.

Select transcript June 17, 1987:

As far as me as a child, I can remember certain things, but I don't have a great deal of memory of my childhood. I don't think anybody has a real vivid memory. I remember always having my sister around and me always wanting to do things and her never wanting to do anything. I always wanted to play. My sister never wanted to play anything. I wished I had a sister who wanted to play with me so I always turned to my cousins, but there wasn't a good situation with my cousins either. That's also a story unto itself. It's hard to explain all of the inter-relationships. I can remember that always happening... that I would always wanted to do things and (my sister) wouldn't.

As far as in school, I got D's in first grade. I did not do well in second or third grade as far as grades went. In fourth grade, I started to pull straight A's. In fifth and sixth, I started to vacillate a little bit and get B's and C's. Then, in 7th and 8th, I got A's and B's. And then 9th through the rest of school, I got straight A's and did real well. I don't understand why my performance wavered, but the funny is that I always used to feel that I was stupid and then got intelligent. It was really weird. 

I would not know what was going on and then a door would open and I would understand everything. First, second, third grade, I thought I was really dumb and I couldn't understand things. Math, in second grade, geez, the math teacher hated me because I was so damn dumb that I couldn't get anything. I remember on multiple occasions her trying to make me understand and it never quite getting through. Then, in fourth grade, it was like "bang, bang, bang", it all made sense. It was like it took my brain up until fourth grade to develop any abstract thinking at all. In fourth grade, it was all clear. In fifth to sixth grade, again, it sort of dropped off then 7th it all came back.

In 7th and 8th grade, once more, it went away. In 9th, it came back. It never went away after 9th, by the way. Then, it was okay. I can remember these spurts of growth and (not having) intellectual growth. I remember never having it clear for awhile and then it just all of sudden being crystal and I don't understand that about myself, but it happened enough times that I don't know. I used to think I was really dumb though. Now I know better, but I used to think I was really stupid, especially when I was very young.

As far as social relationships throughout my childhood, I was a very thin child in first grade. I was really skinny and scrawny, but in second... from second grade on, I was very overweight and, as you know, there's a lot of abuse from other children for that. I can never remember a time more or less of not being overweight. By the time I was up to 305 lbs., which was my peak weight, which is the weight that I was at for a long time, through much of my last two years of high school. In my last two years of high school, I weighed over 300 pounds, and through my first three years of college, I did, too. It reached the point where I didn't even feel like a person. I felt like a creature and I didn't feel like a human being.

You asked me some questions about that. How did I change? Well, I feel like a person now whereas before I felt like I wasn't even human and I (now) deserve to be treated like a human because, for so many years, I was treated as less than worthwhile. People snicker and they make jokes. They always torment you and taunt you and I can never remember a time in my life when that didn't happen prior to my transition.* I never, ever felt like I was an attractive person. I tried to convince myself that there were certain parts of me that were rather attractive, but I could never delude myself to that point. I always was thinking, "Some day, I'll do this or that, or whatever," and I never did it as far as losing weight. I want to find the questions that you asked me specifically so I can address that.

What I wanted to tell was that, you have to consider that there's a lot of emotions that go along with being the weight that anybody is at when they're severely obese. You have a lot of anger at the people who are taunting you and anger at yourself for not controlling the problem. You have a lot of self-hate and a lot of hate toward the people who are bothering you. There's a lot of negative things and one of the things that I found when I show people that this is what I used to look like, they say that you looked a lot less happy than you do now. 

A lot of that dissipated, but not completely. I still hate to see anybody judged on appearance. I hate it with a complete passion. It bothers the hell out of me. I really resent that you asked me my height and weight. For me, it's enough that I sent two full length, full body pictures. What more do you want? I'm not going to tell you my weight! It's none of your damn business. If you can't tell what I supposedly look like from two pictures that show me in my entirety except for my feet, I'm going to tell you! It's none of your business!

I hate talking about this, by the way. You said, do I feel comfortable. It's not a matter of comfort. It's a matter of hating to, but doing it anyway because there are reasons why which I'll go into later on.

*****

*This "transition" refers to dramatic weight loss. I'd lost about 140 lbs. by the time I started corresponding with T.

*****

I had sent T two photos of me in my second correspondence to him. Those pictures were me prior to weight loss and after weight loss. I didn't want to show him the "old" me, but I felt that I had to in order to be emotionally transparent and to avoid talking around certain topics. I had fallen in love with him, and I didn't want him to see what I used to look like because I was afraid that it would convince him stop corresponding to me altogether. Fortunately, it did not stop him.

Correspondence May 23, 1987 (cassette tape)

My second tape to T was the first one in which I was fully emotionally invested in building a good relationship with him. I talked more and in greater detail. It also included a lot of talk about other pen pal relationships that he knew either because of shared pen pals (J) or those with whom he had a passing familiarity due to the cross connections between our group of KISS fans. In this tape, I talked about H, who was a pen pal of J's as well. I had recently broken off my pen pal relationship with H and T had asked me why I had done so.

This tape was entirely created while I was driving to and from my job. At that time, I was working in a small city about 45 minutes from my rural home. The length of the drive was notable because I could complete almost exactly one side of a standard 90-minute cassette tape during each leg of my journey. Many such tapes were done with various pen pals throughout my two years working at a transitional living facility for the seriously mentally ill.

When reading the content of any of my tapes from that time, it is important to keep in mind that my work was made up of 24-hour shifts in which I spent an entire day (and night) living in the same house as people who had been hospitalized for their condition. These were not people who were capable of functioning in the world at large. They had hallucinations or delusions. Many had tried to kill themselves. Some had tried to harm others. No small number had been functionally impaired either by their substance use or their life circumstances. They were much more damaged, dangerous, and difficult to manage than the average person on Prozac who struggles to get through his or her day-to-day life.

It was my essentially "living" with such people that informed a lot of the comments I made about my job on tape to T in my distant past. It was a life experience that few people have had or ever will have, and it may be hard to fully imagine how difficult it was to work in such a situation. In this day and age, I would not refer to the people I worked with as "crazy" because it would be politically incorrect and insensitive. At that time, however, I was 22 years old and the world had not yet discovered a need for an ever-mutating kaleidoscope of euphemisms in order to de-stigmatize certain conditions. I leave the offensive terms that I used intact because this is a transcript and I do not wish to change the way in which my history is reflected to suit a modern mentality. It should be sufficient to say that I wouldn't speak in this fashion at this time were I to refer to these situations in the present.

Select transcript of May 23, 1987 tape:

When I have something that I want to say, some feeling, I want to say, "I feel this way." The problem is that sometimes when you say "I feel this way, the other person takes it as, "You feel this way and it's my fault, you're blaming me because you feel this way," and that's not necessarily true. And one of my big struggles in life is that I say these things and I try to make people understand at the time that there is no blame to the situation. What I'm feeling may be as the result of a mis-perception, but, "I feel this way." I feel they should know that I feel this way so that the whole circumstance is out in the open.

...

One thing you said was that, if you knew someone obviously couldn't handle what you had to say, then you wouldn't say it. H obviously couldn't handle that. One of the things about the relationship that I had with her was that it was so confined and that was one of the reasons why it was so boring. It became very mundane because there were so many things that we could not discuss for many different reasons. She didn't like conflict so we couldn't discuss religion or politics. If I would bring them up, she'd say, "Well let's not discuss it." 

We couldn't discuss anything personal if we had a conflict because she didn't want to discuss that either. She always took it as a very deep, personal insult if I brought up any conflict we may be having—no matter how carefully I tried to word it. I'm not saying that I had insults and I was disguising them. I'm saying that I had feelings that I needed to convey and she got very, very angry and resentful when I conveyed them. I was resricted in that I had to handle her with kid gloves which is hard for me to begin with.  We had so many things that are out of bounds in the relationship that there wasn't enough in bounds to keep it interesting. That's why it was boring, because there were things that I could not talk about... there were so many of them.

...

What I want out of relationships, and I did write this in the card that I sent, is that they be open. I want them to be interesting, but "interesting" has to be loosely defined. It doesn't mean that you have to have four years of college and be a KISS fan. It doesn't mean you have to be those things. It means it doesn't hurt, but I have a pen pal who is 18 years old and I've been writing to her since she was 15 and she's the sweetest creature. She is so sweet that we have mostly KISS in common, but she's so funny and I love her so much that the whole thing is very, very interesting to me even though we don't discuss theories. We don't even discuss mutual relationships. She also writes to J. It's not that she's not intelligent. It's just that she hasn't had the extra years to mature that I have. Every year—every day—makes a difference in your maturity. You'll never be as mature as you are now. You'll always look back and say, 'That was a really immature thing that I did. I hope I don't do it again. I can't believe I did it in the first place.'

There aren't certain characteristics that I need for it to be interesting, but I need free communication. It's not so I can hurt somebody or say, "Well, there is a problem and I'm going to throw it in your face," but just so that things can grow. If you put a restriction on something, it's going to stagnate and it stagnated with H. That's pretty much what I want and what I didn't get (from H).

...

In my experience, my problem is not getting people to talk about themselves, but trying to get them to stop for a minute so that I can interject a thought, or even stick a question in there to help the topic proceed... to help it develop and move on. But, that's my (work), and in my business, people are always talking at you. I once wrote in our staff log books—we do daily logs where we record what (clients)do and what's coming up in any specific behavioral problems—we had a part for staff in the back of the book and I once wrote that I felt like the listening box for humanity where I had to keep listening and listening and listening and it gets to the point where it is very frustrating. 

I don't mind it, as I'm sure most people don't mind, because by listening to others, you get these new... perceptions... new perspectives on life. It's a different vantage point so it's very valuable, but when you sit there and listen to crazy people talk for hours, which is not all I do everyday—but I bet you I get in a good four hours of listening to crazy people talk a day—it gets to the point where I think, "Please give my mind a rest. Let me talk to someone who I can have an exchange with instead of everybody feeding off of me." 

It's funny because they're filling you up, but they're sucking you dry. I don't know if you can understand this or not, but it's like by talking to you, they're draining you of all of your life. They're filling you with their troubles and you're pumping them up with your energy. As they say, "I want to kill myself. I don't feel that I'm a worthwhile human being. I feel like I'm a crazy person." You're sitting there and saying, "No, no, no, you shouldn't feel that way. You're worthwhile." You send all of your energy into them and they fill you up with their illness and it's very hard sometimes. It just gets to the point where you can't deal with it.

*****

At the time, I didn't realize it, but the way in which both T and I talked about our relationships with others revealed important information about how we regarded relationships in general as well as provided a wealth of information about each other's personalities.What I wanted from relationships was not something that I necessarily demanded of him, but relayed through the failed relationships that I had had with other friends.

Correspondence March 3, 1987 ( cassette tape)

The date on this tape is an approximation based on the fact that T received it on March 9, 1987 and my best guess was that it took six days to reach the West coast from the East coast. You can see that the tape has been passed around a bit. The torn off parts of the factory label on the first side happened because each recipient would tear off the original labels at the top and replace them with their own. This tape was T's first tape to me that I recorded over after receiving it. If I could extract the old recording from it, I would love to have it. Unfortunately, that is not possible. However, I can know to a great extent what he talked about based on what I said as I repeated back many of his topics and commented on them.

Some context for the excerpts from this tape are that T and I connected via mutual pen pals (A & J). A, J, and I were all fans of the rock group KISS and all of my pen pals to date were also KISS fans. I sought out pen pals to talk about the band and T was the first person who I'd corresponded with who was not a KISS fan.

I'm posting this out of order. This is the tape that T replied to and pre-dated the tape that I offered a bit of in this post. 

Transcript (select portions):

I can't say that this is the best time for me to be taping, because I'd really say it's the worst time, but, I have the time and privacy now so I'd better seize it. What you're gonna find out is that, for me, the big issue with taping now is getting the privacy to do it. I have this real hang-up about taping anywhere where anybody can hear me because my family is extremely nosy. (In) some families you (can) tape and they don't really pay much attention to you, but mine always think this is kind of bizarre, so I don't like to do it anywhere where I think they may hear me. So, right now, they're all gone. Wow! Usually, extraordinary circumstances have to occur before I can get the house to myself.
...
Like you — you said that you were very organized and very precise — I'm very organized. I'm not sure of how precise I am. It's not something that I ever pay attention to. I think I'm fairly precise also, and also like you, as J and A indicated, I'm very straightforward. Unlike you, I don't really try to taper that too much when I present it because I don't like to beat around the bush. I really dislike it because I think that you're not doing anybody a favor by dancing around the truth. In reality, if you're not being straightforward, that's what you're doing. You're not really "lying," but you're pushing what you really feel aside for a little while so you can save their feelings. When it comes to me, I don't want people trying to do me any favors. I would rather they were just forthright with me, and said, "Hey, I think this about you." And, just get it over with. Don't be mean or vicious. I'm not mean or vicious about it either, but a lot of people can't tolerate that. A lot of them perceive that as being cruel. They either learn to live with it or ultimately they dump you.
....
It's wonderful talking about yourself. It's rare for me to get to talk about myself so I just eat up any opportunity to do so. In my sort of... it isn't really a profession... in the kind of work that I get involved in, you do a lot of listening and very little talking because people mainly need a shoulder to cry on and an ear to talk into which is fine, but when your friendships become counselor/patient friendships, too.
.....
The (pen pal relationships) that exist at present are pretty old, strong sort of ties. They've been around for awhile. That's really rather good because we really are beyond the superficiality of being KISS fans. We can continue to tape for the rest of our lives. Maybe taping you will give me a good enough experience in dealing with that so that when the band breaks up, we'll all be fine. We'll all be able to carry on.
.....
About being a KISS fan, it's just another facet of me. It's just there and it's been there for so long that I think that I only hold onto it because of its familiarity. It's lost a lot of its initial excitement and value. It really has, but I'm sure J has explained this to you, too. She sort of feels the same way. We just all hold onto it, just like it's a little teddy bear that we keep with us and it makes us feel secure because it's an icon. It's just always been there. It's like you look out and there is a tree there and it has been there since you were born and it makes you feel safe and secure because it's always been there. It doesn't matter if it is human and important. It just matters that it is there.

*****

My tendency to be blunt muted as the years went by. One of my coworkers at the time that this tape was made told me that I had a lot of rough edges that needed to be filed off, but that he could see that I had a lot going for me. He was right. Filing off those rough edges took some pretty painful life experiences, however, but I did learn that "blunt" and "straightforward" aren't necessarily the same thing.

Correspondence March 12, 1987 (cassette tape)

This was the second cassette tape that T sent me. It was the first one that was a direct reply to a tape that I had sent him. I was so unimpressed by his first tape that I didn't listen to this one for over two months. This is tape 1 of a set of 2. I no longer have the second tape, much to my chagrin. Cassette tapes were expensive and we did not usually keep them around to reference. We listened to them, took some notes about what was said, and then recorded over them.

I will not be transcribing entire tapes as it would be pointless, relatively uninteresting for people who don't know the context of the conversations, and incredibly time consuming given the volume of taping. I will transcribe select pieces of certain tapes because of what they say about our friendship and how that sort of talk contributed to our future LDR. Note that transcripts will not be utterly verbatim as "ums", "you knows", and other non-essential verbal "tics" will be removed from all such content.

In the case of this piece, it mentions the fact that I had other pen pals, but all of them had been fans of the rock group KISS. In fact, KISS were the reason that I sought out pen pals as I wanted to talk about the band. T was my only pen pal who was not a pen pal and that was part of why I was not especially interested in corresponding with him initially.

Select transcript of March 12, 1987 tape:

Typical to my personality, I got your tape Monday, was it Monday, yeah, I'm pretty sure it was Monday. Monday, I got home from school and I had some things that I had to do. I didn't have any classes that night, but the next day my Fundamental Analysis paper was due and I had things to do for the banking test and all that. But, I got home and I see your tape there and my first reaction was "All right," because I wasn't positive that you would write back. I figured you probably would, but you never get too confidant about those kinds of things. You don't want to be expecting it and then when it doesn't happen, you say, "Gee, you know, I wonder why." I personally don't like to get my hopes up for things. And then, it's just so after they happen, "Oh, good, okay, it did happen." So, I was very happy to see your tape there and I liked the card. I think it's a neat card. It's too bad (name of KISS fan magazine that S. worked for) is now defunct as I understand it is. That was neat.

So, naturally, I've got all these things that I have to do, right? So, what do I do, I go into my room and listen to the tape. I couldn't help it because, I don't know, I was just very curious and also it's part of my personality that whenever I get tapes, I like to listen to them right away. There's some times when that's simply impossible, but generally speaking, I have this impulse to put them in right away.

It's like, "oh, good, I want to hear the latest news, be it from J or A.*" With this tape, it was even more like that because I'd never heard you before. It's like, "Oh, a whole new person. I've got to hear what she sounds like." So, I took the tape into my room and listened to it and I must say that, I was like, "Whoah, this is neat!" I think I'm going to really enjoy talking to you. I think we can have some really interesting conversations because while we're not... our major fields are different and everything, and no, I'm not a KISS fan... you said you never had a successful pen pal relationship with anybody who's not a KISS fan before. My reaction to that, was "Well, there's a first time for everything." I'm not terribly worried about that. 


I think we'll have more than enough to talk about without that. When you were talking about that, you said part of the reason that it hasn't worked before with other non-KISS fans was that, when you're writing letters or making tapes, it facilitates communication a lot quicker, but when you're trying to get beyond the superficiality of just knowing somebody for the first time, then if you didn't have anything to talk about, then you'd fall back on KISS as a way to have something to talk about. You'd get to know each other better and then you could start talking about more things. 

I don't know because, I don't think that's going to be a problem because I do not feel, for some reason, and I don't know why... maybe I should, but I do not feel constrained by whatever bounds are involved in not knowing you very much yet. I've only heard you for an hour or so, but, for some reason, and I may be wrong, I got the sense, just kind of a sense, nothing that you can really put into words too much, I got a sense from listening to you talk that I can talk to you about a lot of stuff and that I can trust you to listen to what I say and... It's a just a feeling that I can talk and I'm not really going to worry about if I say the wrong thing, or, "maybe I shouldn't say that because I don't know her real well." I don't know if you know what I'm trying to say, but, like you say, I suppose that when you do start writing people, there would tend to be a holding back process on one side or the other about certain things because you really don't know the person. With you, I feel like it's different because you have an air about you of "Hey, this is just the way it is and I'm going to say it if that is the way it is, so the hell with it." And, I'm a little like that myself. So, I don't think it's going to be a problem for either of us as far as that goes.

*J and A were mutual pen pals at that time. They were responsible for T starting to correspond with me as I'd known them for some time before.