By Brendan Ulmer
Ulmer Uncensored
One of the unfortunate parts about coming of age in the 21st century is that I have left a long paper trail of being a cringeworthy oaf.
Before technology became ubiquitous, the embarrassing things people said would live only in the memories of those who heard them.
Those must have been the good ol’ days.
I’m not talking about offensive or outdated statements—I’m talking about the general embarrassing thoughts of youth that I hope I wasn’t alone in having.
I’m thinking about this because I recently made the mistake of trying to scroll through my correspondence with my fiancée, Maddie, to pinpoint the day when we started talking.
The way I got Maddie’s attention after having some classes together our freshman year at Hutch CC was embarrassing in its own way: an Instagram direct message.
I sent Maddie, a cat person by the way, a very, very mildly amusing video of someone carrying their dog down the stairs in a way that made it look like it was being sneaky.
Certainly not the best shot anyone has ever taken, but luckily for me, she already liked me (for some reason).
We struck up a conversation and haven’t stopped talking since.
Now, I think it’s pretty universal that when someone receives an essay of a text message, the first thought they instinctively have is, “Man, I don’t want to read that.” It doesn’t really matter who sent the long message. You can love them more than life itself, but no one likes being made to read.
I am embarrassed to say that I was making Maddie read almost every day when we first started talking.
Boy, did I like to hear myself talk. I was yapping endlessly about nothing.
To give you a sample of the Prince Charming chatter I subjected Maddie to, I sent her five straight messages riffing on the idea of flooding all city streets and traveling everywhere by boat. One of the messages said, “What if drive-thrus were paddle-thrus instead?” What if? What kind of response was I even hoping for?
I wanted to park myself in front of an eye wash station and just let it rip.
To my horror, in scrolling back through our conversations from 2022, I saw I recorded some voice notes and sent them to her. I will never, ever, listen to what I said in them. I think the muscles in my face would become permanently tense from the discomfort.
This cursed trip down memory lane made me more grateful that Maddie saw something in me more powerful than whatever I was putting in those messages.
It is kind of kismet that I would pivot from subjecting Maddie to endless talk about nothing important to doing that to you, the reader.