Fact Check

Brad & Elizabeth E-mail

Fellow exacts revenge on cheating girlfriend by broadcasting her apologetic e-mail and his reply to it?

Published Dec. 12, 2005

Claim:

Claim:   Fellow exacts revenge on cheating girlfriend by broadcasting her apologetic e-mail and his reply to it.


Status:   Undetermined.

Example:   [Collected on the Internet, 2005]




Brad,
It would be difficult for me to be any more miserable right now, I feel like the worst person ever. First, let me start by saying that I am truly truly sorry, and I hate myself for hurting you. Of all the people in the whole entire world, you were honestly the last person that I would ever want to wrong in any way. There is no excuse at all or anything that happened, so I won't even try other than to say all of us had WAY too much to drink, and I did a stupid thing. I can handle you being pissed at me, I absolutely deserve it, I can even handle the ugly words that were exchanged between us, what I can't handle is thinking that you see me as a different person.

It is weird, I feel like I just went through a horrible break up or something. The world looked funny yesterday, I couldn't crack a smile if you paid me, there are songs I can't listen to, and I just feel beyond crushed. I don't know if you meant everything you said to me, and I am hoping that you didn't. I know that I was wrong on many levels, but I am also hoping that this is something that we can deal with. I know it sounds totally crazy and stupid, but you have come to play such a significant role in my life, I can't imagine my days without you. It is totally strange and weird to say that, and you could say that my behavior didn't reflect that, and you would be correct. I hate feeling like you hate me, and I hate feeling like all of your friends think I am a terrible person, because I am not. I know there is nothing I can say or do to take back what happened, but I just want you to know that fighting with you was just about the worst thing I could have ever imagined. It was right up there with one of the ugliest nights of my life, and I would give anything in the world to rewind and fix it.

I am not sure if you will respond to this, part of me thinks that you won't. If not today, then maybe some other
time. Also, thanks for getting my stuff together, although I think my sunglasses are still at your house, if you could keep your eyes peeled for them that would be great.

I can't even focus or work today, I can't eat, I seriously feel like it was an ugly break up, and I am hoping against hopes that it was not that and you are not done with me. Please don't cut me off, I really don't think I can handle that.

I am so sorry.

Elizabeth
 


Dear Elizabeth,

Thank you for your concern. I'll be sure to file it away under "L" for "Long-winded diatribes from drunken whores I couldn't care less about". You did a stupid thing huh? No...doing long division and forgetting to carry the one is "a stupid thing"; Mixing in a red sock with a load whites is "a stupid thing"; Blowing some guy in a bathroom for 45 minutes while I sit at the bar wondering if you're taking so long because you ate too much bran that morning isn't as much a "Stupid thing" as it is grounds for permanent removal from my social calendar.

To be honest, I'm not sure if it was more amusing that you went and degraded yourself in a public toilet not once but twice in a 2 hour span, or that you seemed to think that by saying "Well, I didn't F**k him" somehow gave you a clean slate. So forgive me if I couldn't care less if the world "looked funny" to you yesterday. Since your world revolves around blow dryers, golden retrievers, Prada Bags and Jelly Beans, I'm sure it must have been most unsettling to actually have to consider someone else's feelings for 24 hours straight.

The good news for you is that my friends don't think you're a terrible person, they just think you're the average run of the mill cum-guzzling blond who commands about as much respect as your average child porn collector. I could be wrong but, it's pretty hard to respect some B&T chick who comes out to spend the night at my place even though she's seeing someone else in New jersey and winds up tongue-bathing the taint of anyone who decides 30 minutes of droning commentary on Colin Farrell's new haircut is worth putting up with for a hand job in the men's room. The good thing about being a guy is that when I eventually bump into the young lad who finger-blasted you on top of a towel dispenser last Saturday, we'll have a shot and laugh our heads off about the time it happened.

By the way, for the amount of time you claim to spend in spin class you really must be doing something wrong to sport the thunder thighs you do. Watching you parade around my bedroom in a thong was a little like watching sea lions mate. Thought you might like to know.

PS. I BCC'd about 100 people on this email.
Talk to you never,
Brad



Origins:   This exchange, which purports to be an apology from a gal who wronged the guy she had been dating and his reply to her, began arriving in our inbox in the last week of October 2005. A number of the forwards assert the tete-a-tete took place on Monday, October 24, 2005. While later sendings of the apology-and-reply claim they happened to "some girl in Atlanta" or "some girl in Chico" or "a guy from KPMG Auckland (New Zealand) sent this to his girlfriend" or the two e-mails were "shared by a friend that happened to her guy friend last weekend in NJ," the following were the explanations that most often prefaced the earliest versions supplied to us:



You know i never fwd things on, but this is ridic. i had to share. it's completely legit. I actually have met this guy myself. So...my sister was at The Hunt at Far Hills Race Track in New Jersey this weekend and ran into another friend of theirs with this blonde girl (who I guess he was seeing.)
 

So, friends of mine were at The Hunt at Far Hills Race Track in New Jersey this weekend and ran into another friend of theirs with this blonde chick (who I guess he was seeing.)


Not even the earliest forwards that landed in our hands contained information about who "Brad" or "Elizabeth" might be, not their surnames, e-mail addresses, or places of business (although the reference to a "B&T chick" would generally indicate someone who lived in an area outlying Manhattan). We've therefore no way of telling if the purported exchange was an actual pair of e-mails sent by real people or if the whole thing was an unknown author's attempt at writing

fiction.

Dating partners who have sent dismissive e-mails to those they are parting ways with risk having their words (and their reputations) flung to the masses. In 1999, the online world found amusement in the plight of Bryan Winter, supposedly a fellow who had been fool enough to explain in most high-handed fashion to a woman who had been interested in him why he wouldn't be taking her up on it.

While opinion is divided on whether it is appropriate to broadcast a misbehaving party's e-mailed confidences to a larger

Gossip

audience, the "Go shout it from the rooftops" form of revenge surfaces in other urban legends. One such story (which we detail near the end of this article about a related legend) has a fellow who has been dumped by his lady love by way of her sending him a graphic photo of her performing sex acts on the new man in her life in turn taking his pound of flesh by mailing the incriminating snapshot to the girl's parents, but not before first scrawling on it, "Dear Mom and Dad, having a great time at college!" Another tells how a cheated-upon bride bides her time until she's at the altar and about to exchange vows with her faithless groom before regaling the assembled guests with the news of what he'd been up to with the maid of honor, and then walks off leaving him standing there. (There's a cheated-upon groom version of that tale — he directs guests at his wedding reception to open envelopes taped to the underside of their chairs, said envelopes containing photos of the bride getting biblical with the best man.)

Such stories — whether factual or merely well-traveled lore — serve as release valves for those who have been similarly wronged or who fear they someday might be. Imaginings of cheaters unmasked before the world and held up for universal ridicule and excoriation give us the chance to vicariously experience the joys of retribution without getting our own hands dirty. Though we might not ourselves ever stoop to flinging a double-crossing lover's personal information and revelatory e-mails to the slavering hordes, comfort is drawn from the thought that not all cheaters are handled so genteelly.

Barbara "that which they write can come back to bite" Mikkelson

Last updated:   12 December 2005


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