DATINGANDMATINGGUIDE
Dating and Mating Guide - Your Guide To What People Think, Say And Do

I write to a friend that during his visit to London, England, I would like to go to Edinburgh Festival with him, but he would probably have 'better things to do'.
(I am censoring the language I used.)

He wrote back that it was a bizarre e-mail.
I replied.

Simply assume
1 That people are either understating or overstating what they mean.
2 When they comment on you, they are commenting on themselves.

If they praise you, they are are praising the qualities they have or wish they have.
3 If they criticize you they are criticizing the faults they have or fear they have or try not to have.
4 Their hopes and fears for you are likewise their hopes and fears for themselves.

If somebody worries that you will get mugged, or hopes you will 'get lucky', it is safe to say they feel the same about themselves.

5 Many a true word spoken in gest.

My bizarre email translated means:

Your trip is short.
I would like to see you.
I would like to go to Edinburgh with you.

But I fear you will be too busy to go to Edinburgh.
Because I fear I shall be too busy to go to Edinburgh.

Your priorities will possibly be not Edinburgh but what is politely described as seeing long-standing friends.
Angela, too, hardly has any time for Edinburgh.
She, too, would make seeing special friends a priority.

It would be nice to have 'better things to do'. ROFL.
A private audience is better than a public audience.
Better the bird, or boy, in the hand, than the boy in the bush. ROFL.
She has previously had 'better things to do' ... and hopes this will be so in future.
At the time of the Edinburgh, she wishes she were, or will be. (Grammar subjunctive fails me.)

----- Original Message -----