Spite presents: The Scientific Method, page 3
Experiment Two: Invite her to a concert with friends.
The Barenaked Ladies were in town. I invited Stephanie to come with a group of friends and I. This was clearly not a romantic invitation, and I made the offer very casually, so her response would be uninfluenced and thus reflective of her true feelings. The message I left on her cellular phone, which I concocted in merely five drafts, was:
Exhibit 2: My Voice Mail To Stephanie
(final draft)
"Hi Stephanie, it's Brian. On Saturday some friends and I are going to the concert on the green. Give me a buzz if you want to go or not so we know how much food and drink to bring. Later."
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I left this message on a Friday. The concert was Saturday. The concert came and went and I did not hear from her at all. Another strike against the hypothesis.
HOWEVER, there is a chance she called either at 11am Saturday morning when I put my laundry in a washer down the hall from my apartment, or at 11:35 when I switched these same clothes to the dryer. Total time away from phone: four and half minutes. I don't have caller ID, so this has to remain an unknown. So in saying that she didn't call, there is actually a margin for error of roughly 6%.

Margin For Error
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Even so, I was inclined to reject my hypothesis again. But on Monday after the concert I received a voicemail from Stephanie.
Exhibit 3: Stephanie's Voice Mail To Me: (Complete transcript)
"Hey honey. I'm really sorry I didn't call you about that concert. I wish I could have gone but things have been crazy around here. I hope you had a good time though. Give me call when you get a chance. Peace out!"
Click below to hear actual voice mail
Listen! (WAV file, 235 KB)
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Interesting. This was far too much information for me to process alone. I recorded it onto the hard drive of my computer and then emailed it to several of my associates for them to examine. We came up with these observations:
"Honey" - another term of endearment.
"I'm really sorry" -- a sincere apology for something that really wasn't too rude.
"I wish I could have gone" - her true desire to be with me, perhaps.
"I hope you had a good time" - once again, concerned for my well-being.
"Peace Out" - a jokey, familiar tone reserved for a precious inner circle of confidants.
Although my associates had examined the message thoroughly, I was not satisfied. I replayed the message for several hours the night I received it. I played it through my stereo so I could use the equalizer as a rudimentary lie detector test, deducing that a shaky voice would reveal itself though spikes in the treble registry.
Conclusion Two: Inconclusive. Try a new experiment.
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