There used to be letters. You’ll remember them; they were written on paper and then mailed in envelopes. Okay, maybe you don’t remember them.
But now it’s email. Could the “e” stand for “evil”? Because it’s just so oh-disposable. Free. No effort, just type whatever ur thinking at the time and it becomes chat, another perversity of the online wrld.
Until you get the blowoff, the online equivalent of “You’re out of my social circle, dude.” This is not conducted civilly, as it might be by a polite rejection letter of old times, but just by silence. Silence is the new rejection letter. And your increasingly anxious attempts to keep in touch are treated with increasing contempt, or, even worse, nothing at all.
There is no excuse for this cowardly behaviour. I don’t go around my life making friends idly. Every single one is a large investment in time and emotional energy. I’m not just fucking around.
People, please pay close attention to the people in your life who pay attention to you, and don’t blow them off. They might be the only thing holding you to this planet in the end.
Unfortunately, spam filters are always lurking on the horizon, waiting to throw a proverbial spanner in the works. In other words, while one sits dejectedly wondering why person X has not replied to an email, person X is blissfully ignorant of the important message sitting there in his or her spam folder. :-(
ReplyDeleteYeah, I've thought of that. It's diabolical, in many ways. How many jobs have I lost because that day I automatically clicked "transfer to trash"?
ReplyDeleteAt least the answering machine blinks.
I wish someone special in my life could read your post. My best friend hasn't spoken or written one word to me since November. (I don't want to go into why here -- especially when I haven't properly been informed of why.) I have no idea if any of my words (various media) have gotten through to the right recipient. And it's been very painful, discouraging, and disquieting.
ReplyDeleteA real friend, in my mind, should be there through good times and bad. If I can't even get through to the other person, I guess I'm not being a very good friend.
:(
Well, it seems to me that it's the easy way out for people who just don't have the guts to confront you. They just hope that if they persist in the silence long enough, you'll just go away.
ReplyDeleteIt's really pathetic. I just did some jobs for some guy in Montreal and he was very enthusiastic -- "Nick, you're the best of all the people I've talked to!"
And suddenly, nothing. Three emails, no reply. Asshole, I did nothing to give you an excuse to blow me off, yet you did.
We must sigh and go on with the realisation that people Can Just Be Assholes -- for absolutely no fathomable reason at all.
Good luck, Rosemary. I posted that out of frustration with many such creatures . . . but I'm getting used to it. Maybe you should too.