Since Valentine’s day is this week, and I couldn’t bear to dig through all my emails from flower companies and write about them (but if you’re desperate to read about flower emails, you can read my Mother’s day posts here and here), I decided that I’d instead write about the most important relationship every email marketer has: their relationship with their ESP. More specifically, my long-term relationship with a certain ESP.

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We first formally met when I was working in a boring corporate job. My office was in the same building as his. I saw him on the elevator, embodied by a different cool person every day, wearing his jeans and texting on his iPhone (in 2008, before everyone had them), while I was in my boring business casual with my Blackberry Pearl, thinking about how to write creatively about the recession for the millionth time that week. He seemed so happy, so bright, so… orange. I was intrigued.

We got to know each other, and started actually working together. He introduced me to a whole new world of careers I didn’t know existed. I went to his big annual party, which turned out to be a toooootal rager, even though I thought it would be a bunch of uncool corporate types. Who actually enjoys spending 3 days talking about nothing but email (apparently, a lot of people)? I was maybe just hoping to have a good reason to get away from the office for a few days. But after a few bright orange cocktails, a grey and black messenger bag filled with swag and autographed books, and tales of a cookie waiting in hotel rooms at the exact moment guests drunkenly arrived back from a free amazing They Might be Giants concert — let’s face it. I was hooked.

I left the corporate job, moved to a big city on the east coast, and our relationship became off-again, on-again. I was wearing my bag from the rager over my shoulder outside of a Starbucks in Manhattan, when a stranger with an alliterative name asked me if I worked there. I told him no, but I would like to someday. I was thrilled that I was passing off as one of them. He actually did work there, and was visiting from an office in another country.

Over the next few years, I spent time with others, but always went back to him, my quirky, strong, bright orange, ESP. He decided to go public, and when I bought a few shares of his stock, people close to me were concerned it might be considered insider trading since I talked about him so much, not realizing that I wasn’t actually with him in that way.

I ended up making major life decisions around when I would get to see him, and be with him. After spending a year at a job that worked with another ESP, I switched jobs as soon as I had the chance to go back to him. My actual wedding and honeymoon were at the same time as his annual week-long rager one year (and the wedding was even in the same city), and for a brief moment, I considered postponing the honeymoon to be with him – but only for a moment. There would be other ragers, after all. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t shed a tear at the airport on Monday morning on my way to my honeymoon, as I saw the orange shuttle bus pull up to take people to the party. If only I had known his days were numbered, and this would be one of the last few.

And sure, when I told people about how much I loved him, and why – there were skeptics. He’s not perfect after all. People I worked with mocked my devotion, and threatened to start seeing other ESPs, but I knew nothing could rock what we had. I’m in it for the long haul. It wasn’t always easy to love him. Nobody’s perfect. And even if he had his flaws, I knew him so well that I didn’t even care, and just worked my way around them. And I only called him up to complain about his flaws to his face a few times. 

But eventually, as what happens with most people and their ESPs, I woke up one morning, and suddenly, everything was different. He had some work done to his appearance, and was running with a new crowd, and going by a different name.  He had changed. I know that even with all these changes, he’s still the same ESP I’ve loved all these years. I know that plenty of others have a crush on him too. That’s okay. I know what we had together, and he has plenty of love to go around. And I don’t think our story is over, even if things are a becoming a little too…cloudy. We can weather this storm, and shine bright orange again someday.