The thing is that, sending that good bye letter (in this context and after all those letters) it gives the impression (and it's the impression she would probably also get) that you in fact expect her to answer back telling you that she's sorry and wants to contact you blah, blah...

You can't do anything about this, as people have pointed out, you started way too strong in the first letter.

Who knows, maybe in another 15 years you can try again, but without doing the same mistake.

I don't think you should send her a xmas card, or any other correspondence at all unless she contacts you first. I agree that silence is often ambiguous and does not always covey the intended information, but in this case - she has told you explicitly not to contact her - I think your silence would be (correctly) interpreted as you being willing to honour her request. Let her say the goodbyes if she thinks they are necessary.

Perhaps some time in the future, all this stuff will have cooled down a bit and you can talk again. But I certainly recommend not contacting her in any way for any reason for at least a year or two, unless she contacts you first.

I never meant for any of this to happen. I'm such a fucking idiot.

Just wait for what bambams will inevitably come up with next and this thread will be all forgotten

i hope bamcaig quotes me somewhere in his wall of text

What I meant what that after a year or two the "any reason" thing kind of expires. I was going to clarify by saying "and even after that, only do it with a good reason" - but I didn't think it would be necessary. Besides, my advice was only to not contact her. Presumably you don't think that's harmful advice. My current advice expires after that timeframe - that's all I'm saying.

Honestly people - I told you not to throw insults like 'stalker' around carelessly. You see the effect it has?

I can think of a good reason to contact her by the way:

Of course, in that scenario it's unlikely that Edgar would even have noticed who he's sending it to.

A careless insult starts with "yo' mama's so fat...". Setting a stalker straight is about about protecting our womenfolk.

Seriously, is/was he stalking by the legal definition? Probably not. In Vermont, the law states:

I think (A) and (B) are givens here, so we just have to show that he is "following," "lying in wait," or "harassing." Of course the first two aren't happening here, so let's look up "harassing."

So it just comes down to arguing that his actions would cause a reasonable person to fear getting hurt. It has nothing to do with your intentions or exactly what you are doing ("not limited to")... just a "course of conduct" which implies a repeated set of actions.

Given that there were no explicit threats, and she hadn't yet requested for him to cease contact, I don't think he has crossed into a legal definition of stalking. Although one might argue that saying something like, "I'd do anything to get you back" constitutes a threat, I doubt that would hold up unless perhaps he had recently purchased a plane ticket to the city where she lives.

What she said, verbatim :

It wasn't 'served' to me by any authorities, but I don't doubt it would still be legally binding. Her father is a lawyer after all, and he probably told her what to say. It was also sent by Express Mail, which I believe gives delivery confirmation, so she has confirmation that I received it as well.

I never said anything like that.

The thing that I really don't understand is why everyone thinks there is so much implicit communication going on. That's not the way that I communicate. I don't use innuendo or imply anything (in my mind / as far as I am aware of). So why does everyone read so much into everything that I said? I do my best to say what I mean, and mean what I say without trying to hint / imply / what the f' ever else people think I was doing.

I've come to understand now that perhaps women would not be as receptive to the way I communicated with her as a man would be (or at least as I would be anyway).

I know now that I'm a total fuck up, but as I wrote everything, it made perfect sense to me then. I honestly thought that she wouldn't take anything I said poorly, but rather take it as compliments / sincere affection. I thought she knew me better than that, but apparently I was wrong about that too.

I still don't believe that I have anything to be truly ashamed of, but I deeply regret how badly misunderstood I seem to have been and how negatively she reacted to what I said and did. That was never my intention. I truly did want to know how she was doing and I truly did want to make things up to her, but it seems obvious now that I didn't know her nearly as well as I thought I did, because I truly thought that she would reply to me.

That's how most other people communicate (especially women) and that's how they perceive your communication. I think many of us here understand you and sympathise with you but that's simply not how the rest of the world works. It's a lesson all of us have had to learn at some time.

Mod edit: ASCII PR0N

Epic thread, i had to bookmark it!

Seriously thought everyone can mess up, we all do mistakes. Now listen to the good advice and forget about her.

Trying to get in touch with her again was fine. General rule though is that you write the letter as a friend. Bad idea to rehash old feelings after 15 years especially after you ended it by ignoring her. She may have had a very different reaction if you had kept it friendly without throwing in loving her still. Your professing your love after more than 5 years would come across badly for anyone. Either sounds like you are lonely and hitting up old girlfriends looking to just get lucky with a relationship or just looking for a booty call. Like we said, EVERYONE makes mistakes (got two serious ones myself like I pointed out) and it is best to accept she wants no contact with you, forget about her, and move on with your life.

Dwelling on this will just eventually eat you alive from the inside out.