Following are the SMS messages I’ve saved on my mobile phone for various reasons. Note: I’ve kept the spelling and formatting exactly as typed in the SMS except for the bolding.
2002-11-04:
YO BROKE MY HEART JOE..WHY DID YOU GIVE UP SENDING E-MAIL ME?WHEN ARE YO GOING TO GOING BACK YOUR COUNTRY?DON’T FORGET THIS:YOU BROLE MY HEART..
– from a girl at a Mersin school I visited for work. I must have been one of her first ever secret crushes – I certainly didn’t know about it. Ah, the innocence…
2003-11-01:
Hi¿o€!while i was thinking smth ,i thought that u are very kind-hearthed suddenly it occured to my mind when i was tried to sleep,i wanted say it;>
– from another girl whose school I visited around the same time as the previous one. Warms the cockles of one’s heart…
2004-04-23:
” A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words ” i just wanna share it,I lowe this words
– from a third former Mersin high school girl and a friend of the previous SMS sender.
2004-09-15:
YES!YES!YES!!!IT’S TRADITIONAL 2 B UNHAPPY ON TURKISH WEDDINGS!! >:-(( (I have 2 find something with australian boys>:-) do u like the oil?
– A newly wedded Turkish friend sometime after I had explained to her that, by tradition, a Turkish bride should be sad on her wedding day as she is being taken away from her family to join her husband’s.
2006-07-21:
You should be a journalist!
– so wrote the Age’s Europe correspondent James Button when he was in Mersin for the Lebanese refugee crisis.
Is anyone else willing to share their SMS’s?
——————-
I’d love to but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be appropriate.
You broke so many hearts in Mersin, I wonder how all those girlies are going to get over their heartthrob of an Aussie.
Did you go to Canakkale for Anzac?
Joseph rocks highschool in Mersin :))
You heartbreaker!!!
I still have one on my phone: “Cheating bloody Italians”. I’m sure you can guess why that one was sent to me.
Idil,
Couldn’t you disguise the SMS’s slightly and then publish them (or, even better, send them to me anonymously so I can publish them ;-)?
No, I didn’t go to Canakkale for ANZAC Day. I did go to Gallipoli afew years ago but I don’t have any desire to share that beautiful and haunting peninsula with thousands of drunks.
Dragos,
I’m sure you would have also broken a few hearts if you visited the schools here.
Oz,
Was that because you got ripped off at the pizza place? 😉
The problem with the internet is it is difficult to see if someone is just stupid or is winking in knowing acknowledgement. I’m sure it is the latter.
Oz,
Of course it is the latter.