A "Dear John" letter is a letter from one person to the other breaking off their relationship.

No, my name is not John, but I did get a "Dear John" letter from my supposed loving fiancée. In today's world this letter may be in the form of email or a text message. And that's what I got, an email for God's sake. Not a hand written letter, but a damn email. Could she have been more impersonal?

My name is Patrick Riley Conner and I am a computer guru specializing in the coordination of mining technology. I work at the Diavik Diamond Mine in the far reaches of northern Canada about 130 miles south of the Arctic Circle. It's too bad there aren't any women up here because in comparison to most of the guys at the mine I'm a movie star. However, the best I've ever been called before is ruggedly handsome. Thanks Mom.

Being the only IT nerd around means I don't get much time away from the mine. I have to be in close contact to handle any problems that arise with the computers. Our schedules vary but I work for two months and then have a month off. The company flies in a specialist from the head office to cover for me during my 30 days off.

Our only contact with the outside world is a Hughes Net satellite system. This system allows us to send and receive email and surf the internet. The company paid for the hardware and pays for the monthly service fee. It's cheaper than replacing men suffering cabin fever. This mine is in an extremely remote area and is very hard to get to. There is no other way to contact the outside world except by satellite phone or short wave radio for emergencies if other systems are down.

I had only been back at the mine for a little over two weeks when I received the kiss off email from Julie, my now ex-fiancée. Apparently, according to the email she had fallen in love with my best friend Jerry during my last two month tour at the mine. Of course, she didn't feel the need to tell me while I was at home for 30 days. And I was too blindly in love to notice anything wrong.

The email read:

The first thought I had was that she had to sign her whole name; as if I wouldn't know who wrote the email. My second thought was what a pile of bullshit. She just didn't want to confront me with her decision in person. Well I'll have something special for my good old buddy Jerry when I see him, my boot up his ass.

I wasn't surprised that the major emotion that I felt was anger. My fiancée and best friend had betrayed me; it hurt and tore me up inside, but the main emotion was anger. Anger at Julie for being a lying, cheating bitch and anger at my "best friend" Jerry for stabbing me in the back. My frustration was also very strong; I was over 4600 miles from my home in Missouri and couldn't do anything about the situation in person.

The only thing I could do was to send an email back to Julie. I started on the reply and decided that I would put all of my thoughts and feelings into that email. The email went on and on. It was actually a long letter taking up what would have been almost four pages of legal size stationary.

In that email I told her I thought her not telling me about her "new" love when I was home was more than cowardly; it was despicable and showed a lack of character. I said that she was a cheating, lying, self centered bitch. I mentioned that Jerry must be some kind of real macho man to let the woman he loves spend more than twenty nights in bed with her old boyfriend. I'm sure he did that just to spare my feelings. Like hell, he did that because he didn't have to balls to confess to and confront me about your affair. Crap.

There was a lot more that I wrote to Julie. Including the fact that if Jerry wouldn't stand up for them now what would he do when something goes wrong in their life? Finally I told them that when I get back to the real world they had better stay away from me because I wouldn't be responsible for my actions toward them. The last line of the email stated that I was probably better off without a bitch like her in my life or a back stabbing ass like Jerry as a friend.

I wrote, rewrote, and edited that email several different times. Finally I had just the statement I wanted to make. I reread it one more time and hit the send button. After sending that long email I thought for a few minutes and sent a second email. This email was considerably shorter.

My second email read:

Subject Line: Disregard my first email.

Message:

I have condensed the first email to the following.

Fuck you. I hope you both rot in hell.

Patrick

After receiving Julie's email and sending her a reply, I began to think about our romance.

While at home on my last month long leave like all boyfriends or husbands, I should have known something was going on. Again like all boyfriends or husbands, I was too much in love and trusted my partner to notice anything. Was Julie a little less enthusiastic in bed? Maybe, but I put it down to wedding jitters and the stress of planning the wedding by herself. Did she look at me funny when I mention Jerry a few times? Possibly, but I didn't really notice.

I did notice that Jerry didn't spend as much time with us during my leave as I thought he would. He would cite a previous engagement or some other excuse when I invited him to go out with Julie and me. Did I find this strange? No, I thought he was being a true friend and just wanted to give me and my fiancée some alone time.

Julie and I met in college, as a lot of couples do. At 5' 10" and 185 pounds I was the second string running back and safety on the football team. Our school was a small college outside of St. Louis and we played Division Two football. I wasn't fast enough to be a speed runner and I was too small to be a real fullback. But our coach liked my toughness because it always took two or three tacklers to bring me down. He called it "want to" and said he wished more players had it.

Jerry Stevens was our sophomore quarterback and a big man on campus (BMOC). He was very good and hoped to parley his playing ability into a scholarship at a Division One school. Jerry had the classic all American good looks that you would expect from a star quarterback. He was around 6 feet 3, with dark curly hair and chiseled features. Jerry weighed about 215 with a body right out of "Body Builder" magazine.

If Jerry had a fault it was his cockiness. Maybe that's what made him so good; he refused to believe that he could lose. He had the attitude that he could save the day no matter what the score and he hated to lose. Most of the time he was right.

I wasn't a starting running back for the team and therefore wasn't in the elite clicks at school. Jerry and I traveled in different circles but we had a couple of classes together, one of which was a math class. He was having problems in the class so I tutored him at the request of our coach. I brought him up to speed and kept him from failing; if he had failed he wouldn't have been able to play football.

Jerry appreciated my help and we became friends and to thank me for my help Jerry always made sure that I was invited to the really good parties.

Because of Jerry's friendship I started to hang around with the "ruling class" at school. I first saw Julie at one of those great parties. She wasn't a cheerleader but had the looks to be one. Julie is about 5' 8, with long blond hair, big brown eyes and legs that went all the way up to heaven.

She has a voluptuous type of body instead of the string bean look of a model type. With some of the model types you can't be sure that they are female but one look at Julie from the front or back and there is no doubt that she is all woman.

Julie seemed to make it obvious that she wasn't interested in a second string running back the first and only time I tried to talk to her. It must have been the status thing because I'm not a bad looking guy. In fact with my long dark hair and some say startling blue eye I had been called ruggedly handsome. Okay, it was my mom that said that but I think she is right. Anyway, I thought Julie really is a shallow bitch.

The last game of the season we were playing for the league championship. Our team was leading by 3 with ten minutes left to play. We had the ball on our own 20 yard line and needed to make some first downs to run out the clock. The first play our team ran was a sweep around the right side and it was stuffed for no gain.

Jerry called time out and went to talk to our coach. I was standing about 20 feet from them and couldn't hear what they were discussing. What was Jerry doing I thought? We needed to keep the clock running not call a time out. Jerry went back to the huddle and Coach told me to go in.

When I got to the huddle, Jerry grinned at me and said, "Here's your chance to be a hero. You're going to run the ball down their throats and win this game for us."

The first play, I gained 5 yards and the second one I gained 6 yards and a first down. For the next nine and a half minutes I ran the ball. Every snap was a running play with me as the ball carrier. Our line did a great job blocking; I was able to gain 4 or 5 yards on every carry and was able to keep getting first downs.

The other team knew what we were doing but they couldn't stop us. After my last run, the clock expired and the team put me up on their shoulders and carried me off the field. We hadn't scored but we had run out the clock and won the game.

The victory party that night was where I actually met Julie. When Jerry and I got to the party everyone started cheering and congratulating Jerry on the win. He made it a point to let everyone know that it was my running the ball at the end that won the game for us. I was an instant hero and the center of attention at the party. Several lovely young ladies, that had never paid any attention to me before, decided that I was just what they needed.

I was basking in all the attention when Julie walked over to me. She stepped between me and the lovelies talking to me. Over her shoulder she said to them, "Get on your brooms and leave ladies, Patrick is all mine." She introduced herself in a unique manner and with a heart stopping smile. Hi, I'm Julie Jackson, your date for the evening."

Here was one of the best looking girls in school chasing off her rivals so she could be with me. I didn't just fall off a turnip truck; my experience with women may have been limited but I knew the only reason she was after me was that I was the hero of the hour. If Jerry hadn't been taken I was sure she would have been at his side. Julie had shot me down previously and I was young and idealistic and wanted to be wanted for myself, not because I was Saturday's hero.

Smiling at her I shook my head and said, "I don't think so Julie but it's been nice to meet you." I left her standing there and went to refill my beer at the bar. Later that evening I left with two of the football groupies that I had also just met at that party.

My thought process here was a little bent. Why was it okay to accept the attentions of those two groupies and not give the time of day to Julie? My logic there would not stand up to detailed scrutiny because the groupies wouldn't remember my name the next day but I was the hero that night. Maybe, just maybe, the difference was that I wanted to be more than just the flavor of the week to Julie.

The next afternoon Jerry stopped by my place to ask me to help him with an upcoming test. It was time to put on my cape and become Super Tutor again. He told me that he decided to take my advice and work on getting his degree. He was going to major in Sales and Marketing.

We had a discussion previously, when I was helping with his math class. I told him that his dream of playing pro football was fine but there were four things that could happen and only one of them was good. He could get to a Division One school and not be good enough to be drafted by the pros; he could get to the pros and not be good enough to stay or to be a starter; he could get hurt and not be able to play again. And finally maybe just maybe he could be a starting quarterback for a pro team.

I suggested that he have a fallback position, a plan B if you like. With an education and his degree he would still be able to make a good living if his dreams didn't pan out. Apparently he thought our discussion made sense and started to apply himself more to his classes.

It was about two weeks after the end of football season when Jerry asked me what I had done to Julie. He told me that she was really pissed calling me a jerk, an idiot, and an ass and that was the good part.

"She's not used to being turned down and ignored," I told him as I laughed.

"What do you mean?

"That night of the victory party she introduced herself and told me that she was my date for the evening but remembering her prior rejection I told her no thanks and left her standing there. Most guys are falling all over themselves to get her attention and she doesn't know how to handle it when a guy turns her down." I chuckled and then continued.

"The only reason she remembers me is because I turned her down. Normally she wouldn't have known my name the next week because I'm not one of the BMOCs but she knows me because I shut her down." Her being upset did my heart good; I felt like I had struck a blow for the normal guy.

The next day I thought I would try a little experiment. I was going to approach Julie and ask her out. Who knows, I might get a date with a very pretty girl that I was very interested in. The worst she could say was no and maybe she would say yes.

I was sitting at a table in the student union and saw Julie walking through the room. She had to pass my table to get to the exit. Julie saw me looking at her and almost changed direction. You could see her hesitate and then sort of gather herself to walk past me. She tried to ignore me but couldn't keep from looking at me and I gave her a big smile and nodded at her.

When Julie got close I stood up and said, "Hello Julie, would you like to join me for a cup of coffee or a soda or something?" I think I surprised her because she hesitated for a couple of seconds and then she nodded and sat down at the table.