I have been writing in a journal on an almost-daily basis since I was 17 years old. This is a record of me going through each entry from the beginning, and commenting on the me from fifteen years ago.

Three people tell me I should answer the ad. If I did and we met and we loved, though, it would all be built on a lie. Perhaps I shall write a single letter. Worse things could very well happen. Let’s hope for the best and for a woman with forgiveness in her heart.

So here’s an interesting story. Back in the days before the Internet, we were all sitting around the lunch table marveling the personal ads in the local paper. We all were laughing about how funny it would be to put one in and then laugh at all the letters we got back, so I did it. I put in an ad, and got 4 or 5 letters back. One in particular, everyone loved because the girl basically wrote that she wanted to fuck me.

Everyone told me that I had to respond to this letter, so I did. A few days later, I got a call on my dorm phone. It was the girl that I’d responded to, and she was on campus looking for me. She wanted to meet me…but she only told me this after giving me a 10 minute report on her current sex life which included taking a lot of anti-depressant drugs and often calling for pizza so she could screw the deliver guy. As she blathered on, I put down the phone, left my room and went to hide in the library for the next three hours.