From: Jim.Halpert@DunderMifflin.com
To: Pam.Beesly@DunderMifflin.com
Subject: Question for you

Hey Pam. This might sound kind of silly, but I was wondering if you’ve been sending me some letters. Plain white envelope…no return address?

From: Jim.Halpert@DunderMifflin.com
To: Pam.Beesly@DunderMifflin.com
Subject: What’s up?

Pam. It was great talking to you on the phone the other night. I really hope I wasn’t interrupting anything. It’s always great to talk to you and I would hope that if there were things that you wanted to say to me, you’d say them to me without putting me through some silly game. I mean the letters are nice and all, but why would you…

From: Jim.Halpert@DunderMifflin.com
To: Pam.Beesly@DunderMifflin.com
Subject: Just Stop It

Pam. This is about the letters. I think they need to stop. I can’t do this anymore and I don’t understand what sort of game you’re playing or why you are even playing it in the first place. You had your chance last May and you made it very clear to me what your intentions were. So, yeah…you don’t get to do this. Understand?

From: Jim.Halpert@DunderMifflin.com
To: Pam.Beesly@DunderMifflin.com
Subject: The things you said in the letters….

Did you mean them?

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He had a series of draft emails sitting in his outbox. Some of them were finished; some were just fragments of questions, ideas or wishes. He just didn’t know how to do this…how to find out for sure that the letters were coming from Pam. It seemed like they were, but that idea seemed so silly when he thought it out logically. Why would Pam be doing this? What would she hope to gain? They were supposed to be friends…granted friends with a very complicated and unique friendship…and friends could just pick up the phone…send an email.

What if she couldn’t find the right words either? What if this was her way of trying to tell him something? What if she was as scared of him as he was of her?

He told himself that it didn’t matter. He told himself that he couldn’t do this again. He couldn’t get wrapped up in the thin fibers of hope that maybe she felt something for him. He had done that once before, but had been strangled by them when it turned out that all they were were strands of misinterpretation.

The tone in each of the unsent emails was different…they ranged from anger to hurt to curiosity. They mirrored his mercurial feelings. One minute he wanted to yell at her…blame her for this situation…tell her she had no right to fuck with him like that. The next minute, though, he wanted to pull her into his arms and let her know that it was going to be okay…that they would be okay.

After two days of indecisiveness and compulsive clicking through the draft messages he had started, he finally deleted them all. He had to find a way to move on and having little fantasies about pieces of fan mail was not going to help him at all. With a steely resolve, he started two new emails and immediately hit send on both of them.

From: Jim.Halpert@DunderMifflin.com
To: Rosalind.Nelson@DunderMifflin.com
Subject: Request

Roz—

How’s my favorite receptionist? Can you do me a favor? I’m getting weighed down with all of this fan mail. When the next batches come in can you just shred them all for me right away? There’s nothing important in any of them. I’d appreciate it. Thanks!

Jim

From: Jim.Halpert@DunderMifflin.com
To: Karen.Fillipelli@DunderMifflin.com
Subject: Dinner?

Hey. I know I’ve been a snob by refusing to go out to dinner with you guys so far. See, living in Scranton for so long, my culinary palate has just gotten spoiled with all of the haute cuisine dining options. I think, though, I’m ready to try some Stamford fare. Let me take you out to dinner tonight? Just let me know the place and I’ll be there.

Snooty Jim

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Three weeks later, when a white envelope arrived in Stamford sporting a Utica postmark and a letter full of hope and advice on the impending merger, it ended up in the trash. He never read:

“…so yeah. I’m excited that you’ll be back in Scranton. It will definitely make the show more interesting (no offense Stamford crew) but more importantly, it will give you a chance to figure out just what it is you want. Jim, you’ve got to put aside your pride and talk to her. You two have got to at least acknowledge what happened last May. I think you’ve both built up your own rationalizations and justifications for what happened after Casino Night. You’ve both got your pride, but I bet that you’ll see how easy it can be to work things out if you just talk.

That’s it for me for now.

Take care, Jim.

Your Biggest Fan

P.S. When she asks you out for coffee (and I’m betting she will) don’t be afraid to say “yes”.