Thursday, March 7, 2013

Moderately romantic gesture by a yeti rumormonger

This sign was publicly posted, and I pass it almost every day. Now I put it on the internet, for the enjoyment of ages to come:
Last line reads: "P.S. I dropped the class and my back is now unscathed, thank you for caring."
I want to know more circumstances.

Who is moderatelyromanticgesture@gmail.com? 

How does the sign writer know Anne's last initial but not some other way to find her (facebook, twitter, university directory)?

Why 68%? Is this some reference to the circumstances of their meeting?

Why is 68% in blue? The author really splurged on color printing there.

Why not take the brush-off? There's a story hinted at here, where some people meet (possibly in a setting with nametags, so everyone has firstname-lastinitial identifiers), the author is charmed by Anne R., and she is not reciprocally charmed, so she manages to sneak off without giving out her number. The author, undaunted, initiates a passive but hopeful campaign to get her number.

Is the postscript sarcastic?

How did the author's back get scathed? What class-related activity is physically scathing?

Is the entire thing a honeypot for some psychology researchers who want to know how many people would respond to a moderately romantic gesture targeting someone else?

Please write your hypotheses in the comments below. Bonus points for creativity, using citations, identifying the location of the sign (have you seen one like it?), or emailing moderatelyromanticgesture@gmail.com and reporting what you find.


This post's theme word is onomancy, "divination by the letters of a name." An anagram of "moderately romantic gesture" is "yeti rumormongers acted late," one possible explanation of both why Anne refused to give her number, and why the author didn't manage to ask for it.

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