Posted 21 February 2011 - 10:53 PM

Hi there.



I'll try to make this quick.



In roughly early 1995, a letter was sent to Nintendo Power, from a J***y R****n. The letter was asking if you'd "go out with him." That was pretty much it.



Well, I'm guessing it was you. There aren't a whole lot of L**** E****'s in the world.



I remember reading that letter when I was a kid and thinking that was a little bit bizarre. I happened to read through that issue again on a lark yesterday to kill some time while my internet was down, and saw it again.



As someone who is kind of a gaming historian from a cultural standpoint, and someone who loves this particular silly kind of thing, can i ask what happened? Did you guys "go out"? If so, was it magical or tragical?



I'm really sorry for taking up your time on something so silly, but the whole idea of writing a gaming magazine for the purpose of asking someone out is something I'd expect to see in a particularly nerdy Matthew McConaughey romantic comedy.



I'm not holding my breath for a response, but I'd love the hear the story if you don't mind taking the time!



-k

Wow, now THAT just took me down a long walk down memory lane LOL and I never thought of my life pertaining to anything remotely interesting enough for a movie. I actually never knew about the note he wrote until reading your message...WOW! I guess he never had the nerve to explore any other routes to those means but we remained best of friends until he moved later that year. I've often tried to find him, hoping just to talk to him again and see how he's been all these years and see how things turned out for him but no luck. As for me, I'm coming up on my husband and I's 10 year anniversary. I read him the letter you sent me and he thought that was pretty cool that you'd recognized that and had been so intrigued by it. I guess it would have been a pretty cool movie script had it a bit different story line. Good luck in all you do and I hope my response did not disappoint you. :-)

It didn't! Thank you for taking the time to respond.



Would you mind if I posted more publicly on the internet about it, not mentioning your current name? I could also blur out your first and/or maiden name, if you'd like.



Just out of curiosity, if you HAD read the letter, would you have done so at the time? And why would he write Nintendo Power about it? Did you guys play games together back then? Did you read the magazine normally? Anything else you remember? Again, I'm really interested in the human experience you had back then, and any memories you had of it.



Also, if you want I can send you a photo of the letter. It's kind of cute how they did it.



Thanks again for your time,

-k

Sure I'd love to see it lol. I don't mind you using the story at all but would appreciate the no name idea for personal/occupational reasons, I'm sure you understand.



It's easy to mix who we are at the present time with what we could have/would have done in the past. Truth be told, he was actually in my life such a short time. I'm not sure what I would have done. I think I got the Nintendo Power magazine although I wasn't an avid "gamer" but I rarely looked much at it other than to thumb through.



Our friendship was actually really interesting. We met at school - a school I had gone to my entire childhood. He had moved to our small town to live with his aunt and talk about two people being complete opposites. I was a shy country girl who sorta kept to herself and he was this outspoken rebel without a cause with shoulder-length red hair, ice blue eyes, and grunge-style clothes. I liked country music, he made fun of it (along with what he termed us as "hicks") but he made me laugh and we became really great friends.



He'd had a very rough life and had a past full of emotional baggage, which may have been one of the reasons I felt so drawn to him - I am a helper, I like to be depended on (I am currently working on my master's degree in professional counseling). Anyway, I remember one day he gave me a letter and demanded that I not read it until I got home - I rode the bus to my home in the country, he walked home to where he was living - but he stayed right there until I got on the bus.



Well, long story short, in the letter he expressed that he was planning on taking his own life. I got home in hysterical tears. My mom and step sister drove me back to town and I stood there banging on his door, screaming at the top of my lungs, it seemed like forever but was in all actuality just a few minutes. But he answered the door sleepy eyed saying he had been taking a nap to which I screamed at him for doing and not answering the phone and making me think he'd done what he said he'd do in the letter and leaving me alone without my best friend and.....on and on and on as you can imagine. Anyway, he was ok and I was too after a while!



We had a pretty close friendship, he just not giving a hoot about other people or what they had to say and me ready to whoop whoever had something negative to say about my best friend. In fact, my first detention was telling a teacher off who sided with the jocks who were making fun of him and giving me a hard time for standing up for him.



It's funny looking back now but sad that time has taken so much - I don't even remember the day he moved but I do remember how sad I was to lose such a sweet soul, no matter how misunderstood and misguided lol he was the world to me back then and now you know our story.



Well, I've just tucked my kiddos in bed and needing to get some class reading done so I'll check back later, I look forward to seeing the copy of the photo. Who knows it may jog some memories I had forgotten or suppressed, years seem to do that somehow, it's crazy...

so, my internet was out yesterday. as a result, i started reading some older issues of Nintendo Power. the following letter came up:names blurred to prevent public access.i have been kind of crazy for knowing what came of this letter since i first read it when this issue was new, but seeing it again made me want to find out just who these people were, and what came of it.after some Googling, i finally have closure.message to original recipient:response!i had to know more, so i responded:to which i got the response ofafter asking for permission to reprint all of this, and getting it, i had to make it a public thing to draw closure to such a (admittedly quite heavy now) letter. thanks again to the recipient for allowing me to reprint her words.i know for a fact that most of us have a silly NERD LIFE story or two involving attracting the opposite sex. what's yours? this isn't meant to be another GIRLS thread, but rather about our admittedly naive attempts to court the ladies or mens as youth. (or not youth)(i'll post my own, soon).