It’s one of the reasons email seems so agreeable, even if it only adds up to written voicemail. Email suggests an ongoing correspondence; delay is built in and therefore acceptable. Voicemail continually makes you feel as if you’re missing out on things. What I missed out on was the chance to speak person-to-person to Wendy. She left the message Saturday morning while I was on the phone with Jenny. Jenny was my ex-girlfriend. We were together for seven months. It had verged on getting serious, but we parted ways two months ago. We were in post-relationship limbo now, talking infrequently, wondering who’d be the first to announce they’d met someone new. I knew I hadn’t, so when she’d called last week to set up dinner tonight, I wondered if I was about to receive some news. It would be painful to hear, but I didn’t regret the breakup: As bright and sparkling and enterprising as she was, our approaches to life were too divergent. My hope had been for the dinner to be the first step in becoming friends.
