To Send or Not to Send

from http://xkcd.com/481/

Edahn,

I ended up with a girl who, after a couple months of what seemed like some nice, quality dating, stopped returning correspondence for a solid three weeks. She then wrote me a confusing email claiming her phone had been off because she had a "girls weekend" and has been really busy and would call me soon. I waited for her to make the next move and never heard from her again.

It's been a month now. I've since moved on dating-wise, but really want to write her back now and burn her for being an asshole. What's your take on spiteful emails to former lovers? When, if ever, are they worth the catharsis? I know it's not classy, but I have a giant middle finger burning a hole in my pocket.

If you put a dash between "a" and "hole" in that last sentence, it becomes much, much more interesting. Just sayin'.

Alright. Where to start. It sounds to me like you felt dismissed and disrespected by this girl. You thought things were developing smoothly, and she suddenly disappears. I would be pissed too. But knowing that she's flaky and inconsiderate would be enough to make me write her off and not be so offended. It's kinda like getting a rejection letter from Harvard, but then realizing it was actually sent by Cornell. Meh. I didn't really want to go to your shitty freezing suicidal school anyway.

Take a day and think about that a little. If you still feel pissed, then figure out what you want to know or say. If you're just trying to make her feel bad, I would say don't do it. That kind of letter, in my experience, always ends up backfiring. You think you're ordering catharsis, but you end up getting confusion and agitation with a side of remorse. 

On the other hand, if there are things you feel you need to say to put this behind you, questions you need to ask, perhaps, then draft an honest email to her. You might let her know how you felt or ask her WTF happened, or maybe acknowledge how you felt deceived when she offered that explanation of why she didn't contact you. (Being busy is not a real excuse; we're all busy.) It's definitely a bizarre sequence of events. Maybe she lost interest, maybe she was dating someone else, maybe something else. I would probably want to know if I really thought the relationship was unique or was really offended and absolutely needed to say something to move on, otherwise I would probably move on and save myself the hassle.