This viral story irritated the living heck out of me the first time I received it via email as a relative internet newbie because the guy in the story, John Blanchard, stunk. So did the young "attractive" blonde, Hollis Maynell, who roped an older supposedly "less attractive" woman into helping her play some cheap trick to see if the guy passed her test, a test that needn't even be implemented in the first place. If neither of these two nitwits had been so hung up on appearance, there probably wouldn't be a story, in which case, that would've been for the best.
I can't exactly smash this since it was actually written by S.I. Kishor and published in Collier's Magazine in 1943.
But I will say a few things about it.
First, the real title is not "The Rose" it's "Appointment With Love" even if that still rubs me the wrong way. It wasn't love, because there was never enough trust between Hollis and John to develop into love. The appointment was a meet-up, and it wasn't love that kicked in, it was trickery and lust.
In the original story, Hollis Maynell and John Blanchard, (not real people, but fictional characters,) start up a correspondence by mail that lasts over a year until John goes off to war. During this correspondence, John keeps wanting a pic of Hollis, just like any typical shallow drip trying to chat up girls online. Hollis refuses to send him a pic. John goes off to war, but plans to meet with Hollis in person when he comes home.
When that time comes, Hollis says he'll know her by the rose in her lapel.
Of course, he notices the "attractive" blonde girl in the green dress, who has no rose. The one who is wearing the rose is older, and deemed "less attractive" which bitterly disappoints John.
And this is where I completely write him off as any kind of hero. He goes over to this woman and struggles against his disappointment, asking to take her to dinner.
If he didn't care about appearance, he wouldn't have even noticed and lusted after the "attractive" blonde in the first place, he would've loved Hollis for being Hollis no matter what she looked like.
The older woman says she has no idea what it's all about, but some young lady had handed her a rose and asked her to wear it. John was then pointed in the direction of his so very much desired eye-candy who turned out to be the real Hollis Maynell after all.
So, Blanchard pretends to be polite and nice to this woman who he he made it abundantly clear how unattractive she was to him based on nothing but looks, and he gets the girl of his dreams after all.
Bleck!
It doesn't matter if he "did the right thing" the fact remains he thought all the wrong things, he was no different than any average hormonal shallow jerk on the inside.
And Hollis with her trickery was just as bad in a different way. that whole test just wasn't necessary at all, and to get someone else involved was a low thing to do.
The story was later re-written, this time by James A Whitney. He puts a harsh reality into it, the same one that showcases the very reason John Blanchard stinks, and why the whole thing just leaves people such as me with a bitter, bad taste in our mouthes. It's the John blanchards of the world who contribute to women going so neurotic about being "beautiful" while others like me just feel as if we have another reason to lose our faith in humanity.
In Whitney's story, Hollis Maynell is not the "attractive blonde" but she is the older, supposedly "less attractive" woman, and it is she, not the younger blonde, who had been corresponding with John Blanchard all this time. Instead of putting him to the test, she sees his selfish, bitter disappointment when he meets her, and she can't bare it. So she tells him a bit of a lie, saying that the rose doesn't belong to her, but to the young blonde in the green suit she has just seen him drool over. They part, never to meet again, John running as fast as he can to catch up with the blonde and leave poor Hollis in bitter disappointment and tears.
Years later, Hollis still pines for him.
As for John Blanchard, I'd like to think that once he caught up with the blond in that version, that she told this ridiculous clod to get lost, that she didn't know him from a hole in the ground, or anything about any rose, and that her name was not Hollis.
Over and out.
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