Letters With Boys

Memphis and Gray, Week 1 - September

Hi Grayson,

Wow—these letters travel fast, don’t they? Guess they were serious when they said this would be an everyday thing. I can’t believe they’re actually paying for a courier service for this bullshit. Wealth is weird.

Sorry to disappoint you, but you won’t be finding me on social media. I haven’t been on there in a few years. I won’t bore you with the long version of the story, but I assure you I’m a healthier and happier person without it.

As for my friends and I being “loose,” well, I think you caught yourself about a paragraph later in your self-assessment about needing to learn to respect women. But since you seem willing to learn, I’ll do my best to teach you: you can’t call women “loose,” Gray.

Why not, Memphis? you ask. Well, I’m glad you did. Have you ever heard a boy being called “loose?” Have you ever heard a boy being given anything other than compliments after “scoring” with a girl? If the answer is no—which, of course, it is—then we have what we call a “double-standard.” And that, my friend, is sexist.

Anyway, no matter how much s*x my friends and I do or don’t have, I can assure you that if we “met up with you sometime,” it would not end with the orgy you are apparently hoping for.

I hope you have enjoyed my Ted Talk.

I’m not sure I can elaborate further on the smoking/drinking/snorting dialogue until I know you better, so I’ll skip over that for now… Which, I suppose, brings me to “fears.”

You were disarmingly honest with your answer, Gray, so I guess I have to do the same.

(Either that, or you made up your answer. But for all you know, I’m about to make up one, too, so here goes.)

I’m afraid of men.

Which, I suppose, is another reason I’m not the biggest fan of this pen pal assignment.

As for the most illegal thing I’ve done, well, I smashed the windows of a car once. Okay, not just the windows—I pretty much went to town on everything from the frame to the wheels with a baseball bat. I won’t tell you what kind of car it was, but I will tell you it cost more than my house.

You?

Memphis

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Memphis,

How am I supposed to know what you look like if you’re not on social media? Perhaps you could enclose a photo, or text me one, if you prefer? I’m including my cell number just in case.

I don’t mean to sound shallow here. I’m not asking for a nude pic, or anything. I appreciated the lesson in femininity (is that a word?) and would like to hear your take on my desire to see what you look like, as well. Does it make me a douche bag? I’d obviously keep writing you no matter what you looked like. Even if you had missing teeth and a mustache. It’s a school assignment, after all. I’m just curious.

I find it a bit funny that you refused to elaborate on your recreational drug usage, yet came clean about smashing a luxury car to pieces. I must admit, I’m fascinated. If you can’t tell me what car it was, can you tell me whose it was? It wasn’t just a random act of hostility, was it? I mean, that would be cool, too.

As for me, I think the worst thing I did was probably sending a guy to the hospital with a pierced spleen. I only meant to rough him up, but I guess I shattered one of his ribs in the process. He deserved it, for the record. A lot more than I deserved getting kicked out of school for it. (That was a different school, if you were wondering. I haven’t yet pierced anyone’s spleen here at Seacoast.)

I didn’t make up my answer about my fears, and I don’t get the sense that you did, either. But I’m certainly curious what, exactly, you mean by “I’m afraid of men.” You don’t strike me as particularly innocent or timid there, Memphis. You clearly aren’t afraid to write to me, and I’m a man, last I checked. So what gives? Does this have to do with Lancaster scoundrels?

See you,

Gray

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Gray,

I’m not enclosing a photo of myself. It is indeed shallow of you to ask, though it is “woke,” as we apparently say these days, for you to ask my take on this request. Since you claim to have appreciated my first lesson, I’ll give you another.

You are asking what I look like so that you can gauge whether you want to flirt with me or not—whether to ask me out or not—whether to take this mandatory writing assignment to the next level.

For you to do any of those things, based solely on my appearance, is objectification.

Make sense?

For the record, I know that you’re right—everyone’s doing it. Tally and Bridget—those are my best friends; I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned them already—both looked up their writing partners already. So, at the very least, you can rest assured that it’s not just you, nor is it just a “guy thing.”

But it’s still shallow. And for me to send you a photo of myself would feel, for lack of a better word, “icky.”

The car was not just a “random act of hostility.” He deserved it, just like your poor, pierced spleen victim.

It sounds like we both need to work on our anger management, Gray.

Memphis

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Memphis,

Okay, I need to give you some more full disclosure: I found a picture of you.

I get that maybe that will make you mad, but I have to point out that you said sending a photo of yourself would feel “icky,” not necessarily that my seeing one would be.

Yeah, sure, you called it “shallow,” but, then, you also admitted that everyone else is doing it, right?

Anyway, you mentioned your friends’ names in your last letter, and since our class only has fifteen students in it, I figured it wouldn’t be hard to figure out who had who. I’m not a big fan of Ezra—that’s the one your friend Tally is writing to—but the one who’s writing Bridget, Kai, is cool.

(He did mention that she’s kind of an ice queen, FYI. Which made me question your taste in friends a bit, there, Memphis.)

Anyway, I got Bridget’s last name from Kai, looked her up, and low and behold—her profile picture had three girls in it.

Three highly good-looking girls, I might add. Really, how does that even work? Are pretty girls, like, drawn to each other the same way men are drawn to them?

Anyway, the preppy-looking, blond girl was tagged as Bridget, and the brunette with the ponytail in Lululemon was tagged as Tally, so, using process of elimination, I determined that the knockout redhead in the Clash t-shirt was none other than Memphis Joan Edgerton.

I seem to have drabbled on for quite some time about all this—apologies. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, or anything. I just wanted to let you know that I have, in fact, seen you, and that I do, in fact, find you wildly attractive. But that doesn’t mean we can’t keep writing to each other in the same way we have been, or anything.

It just means, you know, if you ever wanted to go out, that would be okay with me.

Gray

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Grayson,

Thank you for telling me the truth.

I do not want to go out with you, and I do not want to “keep writing to each other in the same way we have been.”

I will continue writing you the bare minimum because I have to.

Memphis