A few weeks ago I received this email.
From: xxxxxxxxx@gmail.com
Subject: Hallow
Date: May 25, 2010 10:22:11 PM PDT
To: Andrea Seigel
I hope you are doing fine. I just checked you blog and I think you are
doing a great job. My name is Dan, I live in Africa, Kenya to be
particular, in East Africa. Its a good place you should come sometime,
you'll have alot to write. You know its the home of the man eating
lions and the white rhinos just to mention a few?
Anyways, that is not the point, during my research on a girl of my
dream, XXX XXXXXXXX, I couldn't help but notice that you were her
friend,like personal friends. So I was wondering if you could help me
get to her. I would really appreciate if you helped me get to her. if
you can,please get back to me on xxxxxxxxx@gmail.com. I will really
appreciate it.
Thanks in advance.
Note. Am not a fan.
--
Dan
It's a pretty smooth move to throw off my defenses by opening with a compliment about the job I'm doing on the blog. But honestly, to make that really work for me, Dan should have delved into some obscure 2003-2004 era posts and then, fortifying the effort, drove it home with an inside joke that only I could get. [That's just a quick tip for, like, the guy from Turkey who's trying to meet Cameron Diaz via her friend's Tumblr.]
The suggestion to come visit Kenya sometime is intriguing, but I don't feel like Dan's presenting me with an actual invitation. Maybe if there had been some kind of mention of a guest bathroom en suite or something. Maybe then I'd start opening up to the possibility of whatever he's about to want from me. But at this point in the email, I still don't feel that warmly toward him. I mean, he's telling me I'll have "a lot to write" if I come to Kenya, but it's kind of like...fuck you, dude. Are you saying I'm running short on material? I have a 320 page book coming out in the fall that's all about some kids at a table. Kids. At a table. That's the whole concept. So basically, Dan, I can write 80k words on the shape of my belly button. External stimulus is for people who actually have an enjoyable time going outdoors.
Also, not to quibble, but aren't all lions pretty much "man eating" if given the opportunity, even the ones we have here? So that's not really something to brag about. Nationally, I mean. White rhinos, I see less of those. But I've been to a zoo, so I do think that at this crucial juncture, Dan should be working a little harder...
...because very quickly thereafter, it turns out that all that bullshitting about my blog and the Kenyan animals just serves to bring us both around to the point where Dan's going to lay it on me that he wants me to put him in touch with my famous actress friend. He wants to "get to her," and I don't think I have a full understanding of what that means. But it's reiterated twice, so it sounds pretty urgent. It also sounds kind of threatening. Either way, it doesn't really matter because I mentally shut down again when he thanks me "in advance," because I just hate when people do that. It's just so presumptuous. Like, "I already assume you're doing to do this for me, so I'm going to toss off a thanks now and you just go get started on that thing I requested." Instead of thanking me in advance, he should have been kissing my ass a little more here. Go out on kissing my ass and go out strong, you know?
The last line of the email is the one that has brought about some interpretational contention. When Dan asks me to "Note" that he is "not a fan," I believe that he's letting me know he's not a fan of this actress-- he just wants to get to her because he's been doing some thorough research. There's a big difference between knowing that someone is the girl of your dreams and then being a fan of that person. In the first case, you two were basically destined to meet each other via a stranger you found through the Internet. In the second, you're just that creepy guy yelling her name from the bleachers across the street when she's walking the red carpet at a premiere in Westwood until a cop on a Segway rolls over to chill you out.
But my friend Jon B. thinks thinks I've got the wrong take on the line about being a fan. Well, first he thinks that the suggestion "that you incorporate exotic or endangered animals into your work is intriguing." But then he thinks it's egotistical of me to think that that there's no way this guy is saying he's not a fan of mine, like that's some impossibility. It's Jon's feeling that Dan lets me know he's not a fan of mine because he doesn't want to be perceived as a "fawning emotional inferior." But that doesn't make much sense when you go back to the text for support. Because why would Dan kick of this email saying I'm doing a really great job on my blog if he already wasn't at least partially on his way to being into Andrea Seigel?
