At last, she writes back!

After a week has passed, I assume my new found friend Amanda has moved on to greener pastures. But no! She finally wrote back! She wrote:

====
Hi there!
I checked my mailbox lately and found out that you wrote me. I have to apologize, but I can't remember who you are and where did you get my e-mail address. From the other side I must admit that I'm quite intrigued and I want to know about you more! I want you to know that my real name is Maria. I never use my real name in the Internet, because I think it is safer to use a nickname. Do you use a nickname? I'll appreciate if you will tell me your real name, since I've told you mine.

Well I'll quit here. I'll wait for your reply with impatience.

Sinserely Maria
====

So, though her spelling and grammar are in question, it would seem that the ball is rolling. Cool! I wrote back:

====
Hi Maria,

I apologize for the tardiness of this reply. Life always seems to happen when you have other plans, eh? ;-)

>> I have to apologize, but I can't remember who you are and where
>> did you get my e-mail address.

You wrote me a nice note on Yahoo Personals, in which you included your email address.

>> From the other side I must admit
>> that I'm quite intrigued and I want to know about you more!

There's not all that much to tell, really. I'm funny, and I make my way thru life on that. I own -- but no longer write for -- a news satire web site called The Bentinel, http://TheBentinel.com You can get half an idea of my personality from the articles there. That spawned a book "88% of Americans Are Abnormal", available at Amazon.com. (Used copies are going for $0.01, if that gives you any idea of how "successful" the book venture was -- LOL!) And I took my first shot at stand up comedy last week at an open mic event. It went really well, I was as happy as I can ever remember being. Much of the time of this past week has been spent going over my act and trying to beef up the stuff that didn't work that well.

Needless to say, writing books that don't sell and doing stand up comedy for free doesn't pay the bills. I'm a computer programmer by trade.

I have very eclectic musical tastes, which is a nice way of saying I like a few dozen songs ever made. I own maybe 150 mp3's and I add one or two to that every month or so. Yeah, musically speaking, I don't get around much. :-)

I'm a realistic humanist. I'm largely comprised of whatever information I can find -- whether I like it or not -- and whatever humor I can find in it.

And you? What would you want me to know about you? What defines you?

>> I want you to know that my real name is Maria. I never use my real
>> name in the Internet, because I think it is safer to use a
>> nickname. Do you use a nickname?

Thanks for sharing your real name with me. No, I don't use a nickname. I'm Dave. My memory's never been what it used to be, so trying to keep track of aliases is well outside of my abilities.

>> Well I'll quit here. I'll wait for your reply with impatience.

Ah, and then I wait nearly a week to reply. Nice opening gambit... real smooth.. :-)

Hope you had a great weekend, talk to you later!

Dave
====

So things are moving slowly, which is fine with me. She seems nice enough, though her word choice is suggesting English isn't her first language. Not that I care, but it doesn't seem in sync with what her profile had suggested. Again, a week would pass before I heard from her again.