That you even managed to talk to them at all impresses me. That's way beyond my crush-handling capabilities. :-)

Eh, in most cases the topic was completely covert in the content of the emails themselves.

What surprises me is how instantly, given a name, I judge between "vaguely pleasant nostalgia" and "ack cringe ack".

Or both! Both is the worst.

More the latter, I suppose:

Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2002
From: cdtwigg@somewhere
To: jcreed@somewhere
Subject: Re: Let's totally make out

I just don't remember that at all. Maybe I was really drunk at the time?

This is, in fact, one of the main reasons I keep putting off organizing many of my old emails and papers...

Hence, I expunge almost everything regularly. What I can't remember, can't hurt me.

Is this better or worse than the paper-based cringe cringe nostalgia?

I think nearly everything I have on paper falls consistently in the "pleasant memory" category.

Does it help to think about all the girls that have/had crushes on you and who may or may not currently want to have like a million of your babies? It goes both ways!

...I have a crush on you, jcreed. I know that there's nothin' doin' about it, but man! You're great! And awesome! And super! With the math and the music and the fonts and the shyness and the cute awkward laughter and the surprised face! Man, you rock, and you probably have nothing to be cringing over, because it was probably all adorable and wonderful, if completely unappreciated at the time.

It generally doesn't do much for me, because usually I don't have any clear way of knowing it!

But as for you, you are super-awesome too. You have no idea how much I cherish having met the cute little shy freshman laura who thought that a book that was all over the map trying to make sense of biology and art and science and math was so cool.

You've sent me email on various occasions. Jason, are you trying to tell me something? Were those reminders to send in comics long ago actually vaguely disguised flirts? What about that time we briefly saw sophomore Thanksgiving tits while playing Mario World? Were you actually thinking about the mystery girl? How did that fat guy convince those girls into his dorm room anyway? You confound me still, Thanksgiving Tits Girl! Damn youuuu!!!!

I am overjoyed to live in a world where this may make sense to someone, even if that someone is not me.

You may have missed the part where I said the word "girls". As for thanksgiving tits girl — wasn't whichever dorm was across the way from yinzes an all-girls dorm at that point anyway?

No, that was the all-guys dorm! Confoundation and conflammitation!