How to confess with armour on
For people who send daring emails
Mmmmmm good morning everyone. I hope you’re well or at least finding better words to explain your misery.
In honour of Valentine’s Day I’m going to be sharing an emotional defence strategy/ ontological game I discovered two years ago. (Hey miaow. Yes, I discovered this emailing you.)
This post is for a very select group of people—namely those who send verbal nudes over email. If that doesn’t apply to you please leave quietly now.
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Ok?
…
Ok.
Hi class.
I’m a bit shy so I’m glad there’s just a few of us left… [nervous laughter]
Today I’m going to be incorrectly drawing on Schrodinger’s cat to illustrate an exercise in feelings management I discovered in 2023 whilst sending a risky email to my crush. I think it also works as an ontological game.
Thanks for being here.
There’s no feeling more pathetic than waiting for a response from someone you like. It’s pathetic for many reasons which makes it less pathetic but it’s _still_ undoubtably pathetic
Mostly because we’re misguided about what a lack of reply really means. I like to think I can derive truth from their silence:
“Oh, he hasn’t replied” = he doesn’t like me
“Oh, he has replied” = he does likes me
That’s the basic pairing anyway. When really what I should be doing is interpreting this reality according to Jung’s rule for dream analysis. This states that whilst dreams are physiological facts, one should still suspend all understanding
But it can be difficult can’t it? That silence from a loved one which feels so absolute
Which threatens to establish a mirror world to this one—a world in which they’ve chosen to operate alone? Why?
This is why the game exists.
Some people may think it’s irresponsible to play the game
But I think it’s perfectly reasonable to play these complex games with ourselves when we have to live with our phones every day. You can also think of playing this game as a form of ontological discipline (the kind which Oedipus was seriously lacking when he “needed to know”). Below you’ll find an introduction to the game, context for the game and instructions on how to play
I don’t know… you may enjoy it.
INTRO
Let’s imagine you send a frightening/daring/emotional/sexy email to someone you like/love/fancy. Let’s then imagine you don’t want to deal with the emotional fall out/in of sending that email
(You already know this strategy btw)
It’s the sending a text then throwing your phone across the room strategy except this version is a bit more controlled and long-term. You can use your phone immediately afterwards for example. I thought it might be useful on Valentine’s Day.
CONTEXT
The first time I sent an admittedly risky email was in 2023. I spent a good deal of time crafting it and then I slammed my laptop shut after sending it.
When, after one hour, I still hadn’t received a reply I decided to move this email from my “Sent” folder to my “Junk” folder. (This wasn’t something I’d done before but the logic seems fairly obvious: out of sight/out of mind.)
After that, the days went past pretty unremarkably
Until the third day. Which is when I fully comprehended that I still Did Not have a reply…. which is when I started to panic. Had I gone too far? What if the email was way worse than I remembered?
So now I go back to Junk folder to take another look at my incriminating message and what do I find?
Not only my original email (which isn’t too wicked) BUT ALSO a whole series of wonderful replies
Because what I didn’t realise at the time was that if you move an email to the Junk folder, every reply to that email will also go there (assuming it’s part of the same thread)
AND SO. . .
THE GAME WAS BORN
DISCLAIMER: this next part is where I bring Schrodinger’s cat into it. Not only does my miaow like cats but this is also one of those thought experiments which always seems to be getting bastardised by other disciplines besides quantum superposition. Some smart ass brings it up in philosophy class before anyone’s ready like they’re making a case for social justice—but what about Schrodinger’s cat? And we’ve all misremembered it ever since. After looking around the internet a bit it seems a lot of other people have misremembered this thought experiment too. So consider me continuing the tradition.
HOW TO PLAY THE GAME
Think of an email like the cat in Schrödinger's famous thought experiment.
The whole (tiny) world inside the box is the land of your recipient
And their reception to your email determines the aliveness of the cat. There are two outcomes:
They do reply = the cat is alive.
They don’t reply = the cat is dead.
(I am presuming you’re sending a RISKY email here of an explicit and/or confessional nature otherwise I don’t know why you’d do this. It’s a bit impractical,)
Drag your dangerous email from Sent inbox to Junk box like the body bag it is and go on with your life
(But remember: if this person replies to your email it will go straight into the Junk box as well. This is why there are no equivalents for this game in other formats like SMS/iMessage/Whatsapp because invariably you’ll have to check those apps to talk to other people so you will be inadvertently forced to check.)
As long as you don’t check the Junk box to see if they’ve replied, you can rest easy in the ontologically open space of:
The cat is in the box. The box is sealed. The cat is either dead or alive—I know not which, therefore both. Now you can read books make jam (i’m talking about one of those stormy Sundays) maybe glance at the post box from the safety of your sofa
Basically having not checked the post box you can behave like a wave
(swell and expand with overlapping possibilities)
Unless you think, that is, you’re ready for something (one reality one way or the other) to hit you straight in the face. Step 4:
Assess your feelings honestly.
As long as you deeply care about the living status of the cat, don’t check the box. Don’t check it.
NOTE THE TIME CONSTRAINT
Obviously since this is a game we’re playing here there is a time-constraint. Different email providers will automatically empty your Junk box after a certain amount of time. It varies. But you’ll be fine for up to two weeks. I can’t speak for after that. Anyway if you haven’t stopped deeply caring in the space of two weeks you’ve probably lost the game anyway.
Only when you are ready to find a dead cat—ONLY THEN. Do you check the box.
If you check the box at the right time you’ll receive a very neutral emotional pay off. You will also discover whether you’ve assessed your feelings accurately or not. Did the death of the cat surprise you? Did the cat miraculously spring back to life? (wonderful! what news!)
This game is only to be played in extreme scenarios. Perhaps when your writing is attempting to put someone else’s body under duress. I was hoping that after reading about Schrödinger's cat I could tell you something like this:
By not checking the box (the land of their reply) you can actually alter the way in which they behave, almost as if they were a particle deciding to get wavy away from your stupid keen prying eyes—but to tell you that would be to grossly misunderstand quantum superposition and the very reason Schrodinger thought up this fictional cat experiment. However I will acknowledge that it certainly feels that way sometimes.
Good luck.
Happy Valentine’s Day ♥️
Tilly xx