Memail

I’m disturbed . . . and at a loss. What is the etiquette with email? I realise I’m waaay behind the times. Email is almost like telegrams were, what with texting and Twitter and Facebook.

But I’m talking about good old email. It’s been around a while now. I remember when messages between people used to actually have to be written longhand or typed, somehow, then put into a mailbox. Aside from routine correspondence, such as paying bills, etc., there was not much of this sort of communication except between friends, relatives, or even the occasional acquaintance.

But it was a big thing. If you got a letter from someone, well, you were put in a spot. Frequently, it was weeks after the fact, whatever the fact that may have been. So everybody had to be completely non-spontaneous. Greetings, the “how I’ve been, how are you?” etc.

And you felt compelled to respond. To not respond would have been churlish. Worse yet, more often than not, your response would be hopelessly outdated by the time they received it. But actually getting a letter from someone . . . well, someone had to mail it! It had to be put in an aeroplane. Someone had to sort it, delegate it, and someone else had to bring it to your door! Therefore, it deserved SOME sort of response.

But now . . . the creeping insidiousness of instant communication. I remember the way I felt back in, maybe 1995 when I got my first “emails” from a friend. I was horrified. He kept referencing what I had written in my last email, in quotes, as if to remind me of what I’d written. Even worse, sometimes he would copy and paste, section by section, what I’d written, then his response to it. As if I were some bureaucrat that needed to be reminded of what I’d said. I remembered what I’d said. I was capable of remembering it all, and deducing from his responses what the original question had been.
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"I hope Emiko is well. I remember you’d said she’d been ill."

Emiko is great!

"And do you still live in Kamakura?"

Yes!
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But all that seems so old now.

Now, I have a host of new issues. I hope you, loyal readers, and masters of etiquette, can clear them up for me. I’ll proceed with hypothetical scenarios.

A basic one: an exchange with a stranger you know for sure you’re never going to come in contact with again. In other words, the person who writes in response to your question “is the Perambulator still available, and if so, how much is shipping” And they reply “Sorry, it’s sold.” Do you have to write them back and say “Thanks for the reply! Have a good one!”?

Or say you impulsively email someone about something they wrote on their webpage. It seemed important at the time, but they took so long to get back to you that now you’ve totally forgotten your earlier enthusiasm. Now they enthusiastically reply, in detail! What do you do?

One day, you think of an old friend with whom you used to be close, and have been in email contact with in the past, but now you have kind of drifted apart from. All of a sudden, you feel nostalgic and email them, but don’t receive a reply for a couple of weeks. When you get the reply, you’re no longer in the mood you were back then and quickly see that there is no Earthly point in continuing the correspondence. What do you do?

Worst scenario: you were in regular, almost daily contact with someone, to it almost being a routine. You’d email random thoughts and they would respond. You’d get together in real life sometimes. All of a sudden, although you don’t realise it right away, they stop responding, for seemingly no reason at all. Fine, you think, but you don’t overdo it. You email them maybe a month later with a “Long time no hear” and upon receiving a laconic reply, realise they’ve been there all along, no crises, no nothing. Just that they never return your emails.

What do you do? Blow them off and never email them again? Try occasionally? Decide “Fuck you too!” and give it up, even though you know for a fact they still read your blog? Write them and say that you’ve just come into 25.8M dollars and that you’d like to share it with them and here is your fax number?

I feel I’m being desensitized. Someone writes me “Thanks for your purchase! It was great doing business with you — Pam.” And I never write her back. I write Adam on a whim about setting up an Internet company. And he writes me back four days later when I don’t feel like it any more. So I don’t write him back.

Maybe it’s time to be re-educated. wht r ur opnions?