And I’m affronted on behalf of my 18 year old self all over again. At first I was charmed by the quaintness of actual letters - it seemed so Victorian! How sweet! But. Reading through them took me right back, and not in a good way.
Such arrogance; the letters are filled with tales of how strangers kept telling him how handsome he was, and how all the other students at his college were fools, and people he met through his part time job were idiots. He was superior to everyone around him.
Lots of poetry and philosophical quotes, and postcards of Botticelli and cathedrals. He missed me and was saving every penny to visit (I was at uni at the other end of the country), although he was being taken to court for not paying the poll tax.
But meanwhile, I needed to know that the girl he sat next to at college kept touching him, and that a terribly attractive older woman on a bus had propositioned him.
In March he was full of how much he was falling for me. He had wanted to tell me on my last visit, but couldn’t. He will hitch hike down soon.
In May, out of the blue, there’s an envelope with ‘please open in private’ written on the back. That letter broke my heart.
In June there’s a patronising letter telling me he didn’t need an accusatory monologous letter, and tells me I was wrong to accuse him of being insensitive, and informs me that I am self centred and ‘inexperienced’. But let’s be friends.
In July he is jovial and chatty, hopes I haven’t fallen out with him as he senses hostility, and asks ‘Do write’. (Clearly I hadn’t replied to the July horror show. Good! Well done 18 year old Venus. High Five. I can remember that heartbreak).
In September he tells me how lovely I looked when we met up that evening, and recalls his lips ‘awkwardly brushing my soft cheek in a moment that spoke volumes’.
In October he informs me he has met someone else, but fears she is too much for him to handle. Do write, he adds.
And there a year of letters end.
It’s hard now to imagine a world of long distance romance by letters. It makes me feel old, that the world has changed so much.
Anyone else kept old letters, and found any corkers?