I can't help it; I like the depressing ones best. Does that make me a bad person? It's not that they're so funny, exactly; I mean, they are sort of, but they are definitely more interesting. (Plus, they are way easier to find.)  So here are a few, all from the same day.  So many broken hearts!

D*****G. - Palese write or communicate through honorable person, Monday, or otherwise I bid you goodby.  B**H.

Juan, forgive.  Cruel pride.  Love money more than her.  Utterly miserable.  Pity's sake courage.  Read Herald 20th September.  Yours.

Viola - Send nothing; will never try to communicate; the past is sacred; goodby.

Warts - Don't you know I am your true friend?  Please write.  Sn'ks.

Oh man, these are all awesome for so many reasons.  Did people really talk like this?  That's what I wonder.  When they were actually talking to each other, did they use this kind of language?  I think not.  Yet here they do - right out in public - they use this stylized language.  It's fascinating.  I could write a whole dissertation discussing why I think they did...oh wait, I already did!!  Anyways.

First off, poor B**H.  Trying to write this martyred ad and the typesetter totally screws it up and misspells "please."  I'd have been sooo mad!  I mean, it really ruins the mood when you read "palese"; talk about comic relief.  I'll bet D*****G (who was clearly over this relationship) saw this and was like, "man, that sucks.  'Cause otherwise I might have felt really sorry for B**H but honestly now I just feel like laughing."  O, cruel world!

And speaking of cruelty, I wonder if it's Juan or "Yours" whose pride is cruel?  On the one hand, I could imagine Yours is saying her (arbitrary gender designation!) pride is cruel and it made her do something mean and please forgive.  Or she's saying to Juan that his pride is cruel and he needs to get over it and forgive her for saying something foolish.  If the latter, Juan sounds kind of like a jerk.  But!  What is this "Love money more than her"?  WTF?  Who says that?  There is nothing redeeming in this.  Juan loves money more than "her"?  Is this like, Juan is married to someone but having an affair with Yours, but can't leave his wife because he hasn't got any money, and Yours was like, "you do love her and not me!" And now she's apologizing and being like, "I know you're only with her because you love her money; baby it's okay?"  Cause...that doesn't work for me at all.  Juan sounds dreadful, and Yours sounds desperate in this scenario.  Unless Yours loves money more than "her"?  Which is equally bad?  And all this followed by "Pity's sake courage."  Okay, Yours, I think you need to learn the usefulness of punctuation marks.  Maybe it's a code.  Maybe I should go look up the Herald of September 20...but I probably won't.  Lazy!

So next up is another martyr.  Does behaving this way ever work, really?  Viola's probably rolling her eyes somewhere thinking, "Thank God I ditched this loser because I don't need a great big drama queen in my life.  At least he's promised not to communicate!"  And then she goes off and burns the letters he wrote that she offered to send back, because what's she going to do with them, anyway?  Not cry her eyes out, that's for sure.

Finally, "Warts" and "Sn'ks."  Warts.  Someone who called me "Warts" would not be my "true friend," let's just get that straight.  What a horrible nickname!  I thought Hair Dye and Eyebrows was bad, but this definitely takes the cake.  If that's meant to be romantic, it's falling flat.

Okay, see, the sad ones are entertaining.  I'm a mean person.  But honestly I wish them all the best and hope they all lived happily ever after.  For the record, I don't laugh at living people's misery.  Or really anybody's misery.  I feel sorry for them - I do.  But when they write like this I feel like they know they're being dramatic, and they secretly like coming off as these tragic heroes or heroines, and therefore I get to poke fun at them.

©2011 Pam Epstein