MODERNSHAME

MODERNSHAME was created because misery loves company. it is a place for emails better left unsent, texts that should have stayed in the draft box, and other pieces of ourselves that we put out there too quickly because we can.

why share regretful correspondence? because we have all been there, and a collective cringe is so much better than a solitary one, alone behind your computer screen thinking unsend! take back! undo!

you can't take it back, but you can put it here.

SUBMISSIONS will be posted anonymously. this is a site for shedding dirt, not getting it. no names will ever be posted.

we want authentic, but not damning. we will XXXX-out any identifying details contained in your emails if you don't black them out yourself.

include a brief explanation of the email, your city and state, and consider yourself absolved.

modernshame@gmail.com
Sun May 11

i feel a lot of possibility when i'm around you

it took him two days to write back. i wanted to die during those hours, sure that i’d scared him off and blown it. it did eventually end in a firey mess (of course), but this wasn’t the email that set it off. or maybe it was. maybe it was the beginning of the end.

san diego, california 

—- 

hi, XXXX

i’m at rebecca’s again, supposed to be working, but it’s come to that point in the day when my mind is wandering and working is no longer seeming such a viable option. some things i would say you in person if you were around right now, i think:

the other day i was talking to brother, and he was telling me that one of the most important aspects of any relationship is the element of possibility. i feel a lot of possibility when i’m around you. i feel like you’re so complex and multi-faceted, and so interesting. and i don’t mean that in some cliche or condescending way. i anticipate the next words to come out of your mouth, each one is like a little key to who you are and what you’re about. like even when you’re talking about scienceand i have no idea what you’re saying, i still want to know what you’re saying, and i’m so appreciative that you’re even trying to explain it to me, and i feel like slowly little parts of my brain that i had given up on are opening up.

i know i’m debbie downer right now, but i have really lighthearted and funny and frivolous aspects to me, and i don’t know that i’ve shared those yet. i feel like we could have some adventures together maybe, figuring out ourselves and each other and other people and life and things. also i don’t know if we’re trying each other on as friends or testing each other out to be more maybe,  i really have no idea, and that’s sort of exciting in itself, really. like that awkwardness we have with each other, is that a product of neither of us knowing what’s going on at all, or of us thinking that we know what’s going on and the other doesn’t? or the other does and we don’t? or something totally different? i guess these aren’t things i would say to your face, really. maybe after a bottle of wine. and they probably aren’t things i should be saying at all because they’re sort weird, but at some point i decided i was wanting to be super honest with you, so there you go.

XXXX