Because I just never get sick of talking about punctuation (and plagiary)

Here's what I love about the Internet. I write some silly little complaint that likely only proves I need to loosen up and focus on things that in some way actually matter. And instead of getting "Lighten up, word nerd," I receive all sorts of comments not only validating my annoyance, but sharing similarly trivial punctuation peeves as well. Kindred spirits, I thank you. If any of you are ever in the Twin Cities area and want to spout off about poor spelling and colons and LOLs and excessive emoticons, I would love to join you for a drink and a rant.

Meanwhile, Guinness Girl's comment on that post of mine reminded me of a story I wanted to tell for quite some time, but refrained from doing so out of respect for the individuals involved. I'm now fairly certain that one of those individuals is no longer visiting my blog, and the other one hopefully won't mind my doing this as long as I tell the abridged, Reader's Digest version and refrain from any identifying details. So here goes.

Last year sometime, a friend of mine set me up with a very nice, very smart, fairly cultured and interesting man who, despite all his good qualities, I just couldn't get excited about. There's no explaining chemistry, and for whatever reason, it just wasn't there. I called it all off after five or six dates. I've actually had very little experience giving the "I'm just not that into you speech," so it was an embarrassing, bumbling mess of gushing compliments and "I really do like you as a person"s and all sorts of bits of awkwardness. When I finally quit my babbling, he said he understood and it was really no problem, and yes, yes, it was all just fine. I instantly felt foolish for making such a big deal out of it, and I didn't expect to hear from him again.

To my surprise, that was not the end of it, however. The next day, I got a somewhat strange email from the guy, suggesting I maybe just hadn't given him enough of a chance, and that he wasn't going to give up on me that easily, etc., etc., etc. (I am irresistible and charming; clearly. And I didn't even stick my finger in my drink or mention sheep testicles on these dates.)

Undeterred, I sent a reply, explaining that I was sorry, but I just didn't feel a connection, didn't sense a spark, didn't think it was going to happen. He accepted it and, presumably, moved on.

Fast forward a few months. The friend who originally set me up with this guy found herself newly single and admitted that, despite offering him up as a potential boyfriend for me, she actually had a bit of a crush on the five-date guy herself. She'd been in occasional email contact with him all along anyway, so she decided to invite him out for coffee. The coffee date led to a few other maybe-dates, but although things seemed to be going well, she couldn't figure out how he felt. She confronted him about it. He backpedaled and squirmed a bit. She pressed on for more answers. He ran away shaking his head and wagging his fingers beside his ears like a child.

OK, so that last part didn't happen. What did happen was he sent my friend an email--an email that she, of course, then forwarded to me (because we are girls, and we have no respect for the privacy or feelings of men when our own feelings are in the forefront). And, upon reading the forwarded email, the first thing I thought was, "Huh. That sounds familiar."

I told my friend that the email to her sounded remarkably similar to the one I'd sent him several months back. I had, of course, forwarded that message to her as well (again, because--hello, we're girls; we do that), and, through the wonder of Gmail and its near-unlimited storage space and search/retrieval capabilities, she quickly pulled up from her saved mail both my message and his. How did she do it? She searched for one word: "spark." Our two messages were the only results.

My friend forwarded both messages back to me for the fun of comparison. Side by side, they were even more similar than I remembered. In his second paragraph, all but approximately eight words were identical to the corresponding paragraph in my message. The man had completely plagiarized my "Dear John" letter. I know imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but I can think of really no excuse for such lameness and jackassery.

Given where I started this post, you may be wondering what any of this has to do with punctuation. I know I'm no stranger to tangents, but I assure you I have a point. My very favorite part of this story? The sort-of punchline, if you will? Is this. Once the burn of the whole experience had worn off a bit, my friend and I found ourselves tag-team telling the story to a few other friends one night. We traded off relaying various details right up until the end, at which point, my friend added this choice bit of insight: "You know, Stef" she said, "The dead giveaway was that he used semicolons. Only you use semicolons, Stefanie! Only you!"

I suppose I can think of worse trademarks to have assigned.