Greetings, Miss Manners I accidentally got a lengthy, passionate text from a stranger one evening, very late at night. In it, he expressed his eagerness to see the person again after spending a great few hours with them. Additionally, he disclosed some private fears regarding their time together that are obviously unrelated to me.
I understand that people occasionally provide a fake phone number to someone they don’t want to contact again in order to avoid the challenges of being open and honest about their feelings. It appears that I was the unlucky lottery number in this instance.
How can I respond to this in a courteous manner without embarrassing the sender? Would it be better to respond to the text immediately and inform them that, similar to what we do over the phone, they have the incorrect number?
Or is it better to just erase the text and move on rather than causing this individual embarrassment because they would know I had seen their private message?
PERSONAL READER: The age-old query is: Would you prefer to know the truth or not? Ironically, most individuals would prefer to know but back off when it comes to having the actual conversation.
Miss Manners advises you to just inform the individual that this was an incorrect number. Let them figure out why on their own. It’s entirely possible that they typed it incorrectly. despite the fact that we both know it is unlikely.
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