I have a pet hate. (I keep it in a cage and feed it small rodents).
Do you want to know what it is? (You probably don't, but I'm going to tell you anyway, because being able to tell people things they probably aren't interested in is the whole point of having a blog.) (Well, that and inserting unnecessary parentheses.) Anyway, my pet hate is when people I haven't been in touch with for months or years send an email or letter that says nothing more than:
Hi StyleyGeek,
Sorry I haven't written in ages. How are things with you? I want to hear all your news!
Love,
Lazy Friend
It's the cheat's way of getting back in touch by making me do all the work (and work that, for whatever reason, I clearly don't feel like doing right now, otherwise I would have done it already) . Why can't they tell me all their news? Hmm?
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Just because I'm lazy, that doesn't mean everyone else is allowed to be.
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2 Comments:
I do that sometimes because I feel awkward just assuming they care and launching into a big description of what I've been doing, since I tend to think people will just forget about me if I haven't talked to them in a while. I feel a little better establishing that they remember who I am and are willing to read a longer email first, but then it often backfires with them not saying anything either and I can't tell if that means they aren't interested, or they're just annoyed at me not saying anything.
Aha, I hadn't thought of that as an explanation. I'm sure that your friends don't forget about you or stop caring, though -- nor is that the case with these people I get these mails from now and then. It's more a case of falling out of touch than getting sick of each other.
And I often don't respond to these sorts of mails for a while, but it doesn't mean that I'm not interested in renewing the friendship -- it's usually the case that if I have stopped writing or emailing then I have a lot of stuff going on and keeping me too busy to get back to them. I would probably feel more bound to reply to a longer mail, since they had invested more effort into re-establishing contact, meaning that they might be upset if I don't reply.
With a short one, I feel kind of like I'm being spammed -- they might have sent the same mail to all their long lost friends and therefore probably don't much care if I do reply or not.
Talk to me! (You know you want to!)