Tuesday, May 18, 2010

When do you block?

I pick now
I got an email forward from someone who isn't a close friend today.  I decided to read it.  Yeah, stupid idea, I know.  I only read forwards from people who know how much I hate forwards.  I know they're sending them to me intentionally and for some great reason (usually to make me laugh). 
Because of this I no longer read "if you dont send this to 10ppl in 2 hrs u will have bad luck in love for 20 yrs" or "if u don't send it back it means u r not my friend" or my personal favorite: 20+ pictures of angels followed by a really bad poem that's supposed to make you cry about how someone has a conversation with Jesus/God/an angel/their pastor/their dying child and then they realize their life isn't terrible or that they haven't been living like they should that finally ends after several minutes of scrolling/reading with "if you're not ashamed to call yourself a Christian send this to everyone in your address book....if u don't ur chrush will fall in love with someone else."  Yes, and since my faith is based on whether or not my 'crush' loves me I have to send it to everyone.  Wait, what?  NO WAY!  That's garbage! Who believes this stuff?!
Well, some of my acquaintances obviously.  Also, today's forward (a tragic story with a bad luck if you don't forward it bit at the end) included this email address as the previous forwarder: "confederate_dreaming_angel." 
I know that we come up with strange and silly names for email addresses at times.  But you know, I think I'm okay with not being okay with this one.  What would possess you to put those three words together in that order?  What sort of worldview does this person have?  What sort of reasoning skills?  Is she dreaming about the Confederacy, or does she only dream when part of a larger confederacy of dreamers?   Does this mean that the angel is idealistic about the ability of a loosely associated group of people to accomplish great things?  Does this mean that the angel likes pro-slavery states' rights?  Or does it mean something more cultural to her? Maybe the address's owner didn't think about it this much.  Ugh. Ugh to the other strange/inappropriate address names in today's forward, too.
All this to say I learned an important lesson today.  I don't like to do this usually, but sometimes it's okay to stop all communication with someone you haven't seen for years and with whom you have nothing in common.  If they send you stupid forwards to the exclusion of real communication and the email addresses in their stupid forwards sound like something out "Birth of a Nation" (not a film I agree with politically or socially), it's okay to stop reading their emails forever.  I think I'm gonna block this person. 

2 comments:

  1. My forwards are always awesome. I would block that dude as well!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, see you are a good friend. Your forwards are awesome and carefully picked. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete