the letters
one letter a week.
the word for a feeling you couldn’t name.
you have felt these things your whole life. most of them have names, and nobody ever handed you one. every week i find another one, work out where it came from, and send it to you.
free. no spam, no funnel, no ten part launch. unsubscribe in one click and i will not be weird about it.
what you get
- one letter a week. the word for one feeling you’ve had but couldn’t name, where it came from, and the test for telling it apart from the thing it imitates. about a ten minute read.
- the nine workbooks, free. printable pages you actually write on. love or limerence, the friend crush, am i asexual, love or comfort, and five more. no wall, no catch, yours the day you sign up.
- the research, with its caveats attached. when a study is small or shaky i say so. you get the paper and the honest read of it, not a headline stretched past what it found.
- a reply that reaches me. hit reply and it lands in my inbox. i read every one, and the next letter usually comes out of somebody’s answer.
read one first
you should not hand your address to a stranger on a promise. here are three that already went out, in full, no signup.
the nine workbooks
these are free whether or not you subscribe. that is the point of them. the letters are what comes after, if you want more.
- love, or limerence? the fastest way to tell the real thing from the state that only feels like it.
- the friend crush. yes, it is real.
- am i asexual? a calm, no-pressure primer you write on.
- love, or just comfort? the two look identical from the outside and feel completely different from the inside.
- known, or just familiar? most of the people in your life recognise you.
- the spark, or the pattern? the pull you keep calling chemistry is often just recognition.
- the room test. six things that do not look like abuse, and the one question that checks all of them.
- the romantic dial. romantic attraction described with the sexual part taken out, and the four things that get mistaken for it.
- what to hand over. the one-page worksheet for deciding which half of your work an AI should do, and which half stays yours.
- the sentences. what to actually say to a friend when you want them to know what they are to you.
- the seven kinds of crush. one word for seven different experiences, which is why it feels ambiguous.
- you do not need a new you. a landmark starts a thing and cannot sustain it, and those are two different jobs.
- tell me about a time you felt most loved. the question that replaces the love languages quiz.
- the deeper questions. twelve questions for two people, in three rounds, and each round goes a bit deeper than the last.
- the night list. six feelings that come out after midnight, what each one is actually asking for, and one thing to do instead at 2am.
still here? then it's probably your kind of thing. the email box is at the top ↑
if you want something smaller, one question a day sends one of the two hundred questions from the seven kinds each morning, free.
the letters also live at riadumitrescu.substack.com, if you'd rather read them there.