Not Returning E-mails

It's very easy to over-romanticize the "art of letter writing," a phrase still used to peddle $79 leather writing kits to middle-aged women. But the truth is that human communication has always been a muddled, unfair and sometimes bloody affair. (Just think back to the hilarious "kill the bearers of this note" thing that doomed Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Hamlet, you screwball!)

E-mail has improved the situation in certain respects, and severely degraded it in others. No longer do we need to worry about elegant handwriting, timely delivery or the physical handling and preservation of our missives. But along with their ephemeral nature, the very ease of sending e-mails makes them the perfect way to blow people off. Those who fail to reply are socially armored by largely specious claims such as: "My computer ate it!" or "I just got buried in mail!" or the frank but loathesome "It's only an e-mail!"

Depending on the original intent of the ignored e-mailer, the ignorer sends a message with an intensity and meaning that ranges from a faint "eh" to a resounding "put your own poop in GladWare, reheat it in the microwave and then eat it, pops."

But until now, there has never been a precise and comprehensive assessment of what kind of non-e-mail sends what kind of message.

Party Invitations

What you're saying by not answering the note: Yeah, I'd go to your thing, but it's about 30 minutes out of my way, and I'll only know two people there, at best. Plus, frankly, you strike me as the kind of guy who stocks "Cossack" brand "vodka," and the idea of heading over to your apartment is more than I can handle this weekend. And they're doing a four-hour "Law & Order" marathon on TNT. What? They always do those? Well, just assume my total failure to reply is a very polite and thoughtful RSVP. Yeah. Assume that.

Business Propositions

WYSBNATN: Not only am I not interested in your proposal, I don't think you're important enough to be either valuable or dangerous to me. Begone, gnat. Squishy squishy, little gnat. Squishy squishy, gnat ego. I crush you.

Boring Work E=mails CC:ed to a Bunch of People Who Should Technically Care:

WYSBNATN: Eh. (Faintly.)

Romantic Overtures

WYSBNATN: You must be shroomin'. You don't have the stones to tell me any of this to my face? Is this seriously the medium you choose for serious emotional interchange? For your sake more than mine, I'm going to pretend this never happened.

Alternately: Oh! Oh God! This is so great! Agh! What the hell should I do? I should probably... write back? Call? Probably write back. But what? Don't want to seem overeager. Maybe I'll give it... like a week. Or two days. Or I'll write back tomorrow. Maybe a week. WAAAAUGH!

Alternately: You are less attractive to me than a powerless Henry Kissinger.

Alternately: Is this some kind of romantic overture? From the smiley face, I'm guessing yes... but... could it be sarcastic? Is she messing with me? Or just — friendly? Gonna let this one lie for a while.

Apologies

WYSBNATN: Apology un-accepted, bitch.

Mail From Your Family

WYSBNATN: I. Am. So. Lazy. See you at Thanksgiving, Mom. The underlying implicit love that defines our relationship has no impact whatsoever on my willingness to spend 45 seconds pecking out a response to your well-intentioned but largely off-base questions about my personal life, even if my failure to reply touches off a battery of frantic phonecalls to make sure I'm not in the hospital with "that new kind of flu they talked about on the news."

Friendly Invitations to Get Drinks

WYSBNATN: The idea of spending three hours at a bar with you fills me with profound horror, you nerd. Oh, I'll do business with you. I'll even prominently identify you as a friend when convenient. But for now... dangle! Entertain yourself with your nerd friends! Yeah! Play Worlds of Warcraft!

Pornographic Website Offers

WYSBNATN: Not sufficiently interested in seeing women with clothespins clamping their nipples to risk clicking on your link that is 732 characters long, and written in Cyrillic. Or maybe not interested in the clothespins thing at all. Maybe more interested in "schoolgirls" with enough Yakuza tattoos to qualify as Tokyo underbosses.

These options are rarely the meaning that the nonreplier intends to convey. Nonresponses can damage relationships permanently depending on the earnestness and importance of the original note — there's no call for risking it. Respond to every note, briefly and precisely at worst, expansively and enchantingly whenever possible!

Unless you're writing to a nerd who wants to get drinks with you. That particular nerd can drink alone. Or they can drink magical elven ale together with thousands of imaginary friends... in the Worlds of Warcraft!

— James Norton (jrnorton@flakmag.com)

— graphic by Benjamin Chandler (blchandler at sbcglobal dot net)