Friends & Emails
By relundad
@relundad (2310)
United States
September 21, 2008 11:05pm CST
Every day my inbox is bombarded with jokes, prayers, and political crap from friends that decide to forward every piece of junk that they get in their inbox. Most times I at least open them just in case the person is actually trying to contact me or to say hello etc. Unfortunately it turns out that 99% of the time they are just passing their garbage! Never just to say hello.
I find it really irritating especially if they send emails , that you may not agree with or are against, or you have no interest in, and in some cases that you might find down right offensive. Don't get me wrong I too forward these type things but I will at least "hand pick" who I am sending the information too. I think that is just common courtesy. I wouldn't want to send my pastor of my church an email with all 4 letter words or something, or my gay friends an email bashing gay people, or my overweight friends a "fat" joke.
I will often get emails of this nature from people that I gave my business card to and they have put my address in there address book, and they don't know me well enough to even include me in their "friend" group.
Do you ever get emails from your so-called friends of this nature? Is there a way that you can politely say don't send me your junk mail, I'm so not interested? Is there a way to politely say I am glad that you are supporting Candidate X, but I am not and don't care to get 948 emails a day in reference to Candidate X? How do you handle this situation?
1 person likes this
5 responses
@revellanotvanella (4033)
• United States
23 Sep 08
Yea, my FATHER does this and it was so weird at first because he was sending me chain letters telling me if you dont pass this on something bad will happen and I just did nothing with them and he eventually must have gotten the point because with chain letters you have to send it back to the person who sent it. It was really hard even though one half of me knew it was junk mail and probably getting my email into the hands of people I didnt need it in but then the other half felt bad because I didn't want my father to think I didnt care. I still hand write my letters and send them snail mail so that is how I show 'I care' but very often I dont even get letters back, it made my day when just the past winter I got three letters from my Aunt which I have been sending them letters for the past 10 years, but it still made my day. Much rather have snail mail over an email but when it comes to my dad a simple hello email or snail is fine. My friends usually know Im not into the whole junk mail thing because I just do not respond. The only time I do is when friends from high school (Im 27) contact me with the long list of questions stuff like that you answer which is a good way to catch up (that, or MySpace i guess).
@Hatley (163776)
• Garden Grove, California
23 Sep 08
hi relundad what really sinks my boat is the chain ones i kept getting from friends that I am supposed to make ten copies and sent the thing on. I dont care if its something like sending an email of a lit candle of hope to one of our troop in iraq, I am now telling all my friends I just dont do chain letters of any kind. all that I ever get from that is a lot more spam. that I do not need.
@kishore415 (889)
• India
22 Sep 08
Every day i used to get lot of mails to my mail box.One of my friends used to send each and every mail what he have got.I will get irritation.But i need to spend lot of time to read all those mails.I know i am wasting my time but i can't do anything.
@dragon54u (31634)
• United States
22 Sep 08
That's a pet peeve of mine, too. I left a couple of dear friends behind when I moved across the country and we all talk by phone but the only emails I ever get from them are those forwarded jokes and stuff. My sister does the same thing.
I don't forward many things, only the really good stuff I think people would like and I always put "joke for you" or something in the subject line. I also cut/paste and edit out all the "" marks that are so irritating. And I always say hello or include a piece of news before the joke or whatever it is.
I have never figured out why someone who you don't know well would forward things, anyway! 
@momjessie82 (344)
• United States
22 Sep 08
I have had to set up a new email for my business info, sites, and promotion materials for this exact reason. I get so many forwards, surveys, chain letters, etc from friends along with so many offers, spam, and junk that it was getting impossible to weed out the important stuff. I did not want to accidentally lose an important business email while sorting through all the junk. So, I just set up another yahoo email. Then, I rerouted all my work stuff, surf sites, and everything else to that site. That way, it is nothing but business stuff. I will continue to use my personal email for communicating with friends, but I usually open the emails and if they are just a forward, 90% of the time I just delete them. I have the same problem with my cell phone. Everyone sends me forward text messages and chain mails. It is ridiculous.
@relundad (2310)
• United States
22 Sep 08
Oh that is another one, that I absolutely hate! People forward junk text messages not knowing or caring whether or not the person has a per text cost associated with your cell phone service. LOL thats a whole other discussion!
Thanks for responding.
