You’ve Got Mail - AIBU

[JJsDinerWaffles]

Hi everyone. So, I’ve been messaging a guy via email for a while and we agreed to meet a while ago. (Because it’s the 90s and we don’t know about online safety yet.) He didn’t show up and I was heartbroken.

I’ve just found out who the guy is! He’s the guy who put me out of business (the beautiful bookshop my dear dead mother owned), PLUS he found out who I was and lied to me about it (or just didn’t tell me.).

BUT because it’s New York and it’s beautiful and we have this lovely jazzy soundtracks to our conversations - plus he brought me daisies (even though he barged into my house when I was ill and asked him not to) AIBU to think he’s TOTALLY changed - he’s the Darcy to my Elizabeth and we’ll live happily ever after?

I mean, he wiped my tears with an actual handkerchief! If that isn’t the sign of a changed man I don’t know what is.

Excellent OP - have you ever read the take-down of Love Actually - it is in a similar vein, DD and I read it and we will never be able to see the film again without shouting at it.

It is weird because I was in my early 20's when this movie came out and none of what you are writing would have occurred to me - we lived in such a sexist society that we thought this was good stuff and we were fearful of imposing boundaries and always so conscious of "being nice".

I remember I had a stalker and I used to hide from him in my living room so that he would think I was out - instead of calling the police on him!!!! I hid behind a sofa for months!!! I eventually left my flat and moved to an apartment where he could not find me - yes even writing that now is cringe.

YABU because his dog is adorable and you get to be mates with Steve Zahn. And Birdy is hilarious.

I know it’s SO wrong but I still love it.

I usually love Meg Ryan but she just seemed so neurotic in that film.

Yeah I was also totally horrified by that film. He was dreadful and she deserved better.

Is this real? Run. Now.

How could she just forgive him destroying her business just like that?

@CoronaIsWatching

Is this real? Run. Now.

Is your comment real? Or did you not read any of the thread?

I always hated Sleepless in Seattle too. Perhaps I'm unromantic, but it annoys me that Meg Ryan leads her fiance on (she's literally planning her wedding), despite the fact she's not interested in him and wants OMG magic, and becomes obsessed with a bloke who is still openly grieving for his ex-wife. It's the sort of wedding you'd go to and be like "yeah, this won't last five years".

But I do like the shot of the very old internet and how a kid manages to book a plane ticket and travel to NY on his own.

YABU. How many other guys would wipe your tears away!!

(Stop ruining one of my favourite films!)

Read this to my DD. She has some questions:

So, I’ve been messaging a guy via email for a while and we agreed to meet a while ago

Why are you using email? Do you work with him?

He’s the guy who put me out of business (the beautiful bookshop my dear dead mother owned)

What do you mean bookshop? Was your mum an app developer or something? Does the man own amazon?

he wiped my tears with an actual handkerchief!

What's a hankerchief?

I tried to get her to watch the film for context but she 'doesn't like period dramas'.

I tried to get her to watch the film for context but she 'doesn't like period dramas'.

Genuine laugh out loud moment.

YANBU OP. Yes, the cynical could say that there's more red flags than a communist rally but think of the romance! He must be the perfect man to know your own mind better than you know it yourself and what does your livelihood or honesty matter when you have a MAN falling at your feet? And one with a handkerchief, no less. He must be a real gentleman.

Honestly OP, I'm amazed you even had to ask.

See how it goes OP.

It's my favourite movie

I tried to get her to watch the film for context but she 'doesn't like period dramas'.

Oh bloody hell, I feel about 400 years old now!

Haha loving all the responses!
I watched the film in the cinema when I was a Mooney-eyed teenager and loved it. Watched it on a Netflix over the weekend (in 3 sittings as it is long and I have children!) through the eyes of someone who has read a lot of threads on Mumsnet and just thought whaaaaaat?!

BUT as others have said I still really enjoyed it! Love the music, the city, the bookshops. I think they would only get away with it because it’s Tom Hanks...

(Are you allowed to step out of character on your own thread?!)

LTB, obvs.

It wasn’t my favourite film, honestly.
While you were sleeping though, I’ve watched more than I can count. We even went to Florence for our honeymoon

I momentarily got it mixed up with Sleepless in Seattle.
Now that was a good film, don't diss that one.

I love bad romcoms, especially My Best Friend's Wedding.

When Harry Met Sally though....

As it’s the late 1990s you should start an online business selling books and maybe expand out to other things. Then you can put the bastard out of business entirely. Maybe call it Amazon? (I was ordering stuff from actual Amazon in 1998 so maybe beat them to it as well, become a self made female billionaire )

I thought it was sweet at the time. I don’t now.

Sleepless
In Seattle (which I love btw ): a frankly deranged woman has an emotional affair with a figment of her own imagination, stalks a stranger across a continent. Grooms a child to run away from home, dumps her admittedly dull fiancé and then gets her man who, on top of the Empire State Building, miraculously changes from all round good egg and kindly father to simpering idiot.
You've got mail: same cast but psycho/good egg reversed and leading lady has had unfortunate Botox.

I've been watching sliding doors.

Now that is a seriously underrated romcom

@Coughsyrupsucks ooh this is an interesting idea! Online business you say? But why would anyone buy a book when they can’t pick it up and flick through it first?

[quote JJsDinerWaffles]@Coughsyrupsucks ooh this is an interesting idea! Online business you say? But why would anyone buy a book when they can’t pick it up and flick through it first?[/quote]
Surely the correct response is ‘When you say online, do you mean I email my customers with my book list? Otherwise how would they know how to order books? Do I send them a list and get a free phone number for them to order on? Or do they email back? Do they pick them up at my store? I post them? Wow, but don’t they want to read it straight away?’