You both know and love and are driven crazy by this same person.Īlthough sometimes, let’s just admit, we’re simply being mean. Just as teasing someone to his face is a way of letting him know that you know him better than he thinks, making fun of him behind his back is a way of bonding with your mutual friends, reassuring one another that Nothing ridiculous are by far the most preposterous of all.) (And those few people about whom there is Into their dumb addictions and self-defeating habits, blind to their own hilarious flaws and blatant contradictions and fiercely devoted to whatever keeps them miserable. Anyone worth knowing is inevitably also going to be exasperating: making the same obvious mistakes over and over, dating imbeciles, endlessly relapsing We all make fun of one another behind one another’s backs, even the people Needless to say, this makes us embarrassed and angry and damn our betrayers as vicious two-faced hypocrites. It’s proof that we are visible to others, that we are seen, in all our naked silliness and stupidity. Pleasant to be objectively observed - it’s like seeing a candid photo of yourself online, not smiling or posing, but simply looking the way you apparently always do, oblivious and mush-faced with your I’ve also been written about, in ways I could find no fault with but that were nonetheless excruciating for me to read. Were generous and empathetic, which they experienced as devastating. I’ve written essays about friends that I felt This experience is not a novelty of the information age it’s always been available to us by the accident of overhearing a conversation at the wrong moment. There’s something existentially alarmingĪbout finding out how little room we occupy, and how little allegiance we command, in other people’s heads. Just another person in the world, and everyone else does not always view you in the forgiving light that you hope they do, making all allowances, always on your side. Hearing other people’s uncensored opinions of you is an unpleasant reminder that you’re What was surprisingly wounding wasn’t that the e-mail was insulting but simply that it was unsympathetic. And let’s be honest - I am terrible with money, but I’ve always liked to think of this as an endearingįoible. It’s frankly hard to parse the word “oof” in this context. Tone is notoriously easy to misinterpret over e-mail, and my friend’s message could have easily been read as affectionate head shaking rather than a contemptuousĮye roll. This particular e-mail was, in itself, no big deal. Civilization, which is held together by a fragile web of tactful phrasing, polite omissions and white lies, would collapse in an apocalypse of bitter recriminations and weeping, breakups and fistfights,ĭivorces and bankruptcies, scandals and resignations, blood feuds, litigation, wholesale slaughter in the streets and lingering ill will. It would be like suddenly subtracting the strong nuclear force from the universe the fabric of society would instantly evaporate, every marriage, friendship and business partnershipĭissolved. I’ve often thought that the single most devastating cyberattack a diabolical and anarchic mind could design would not be on the military or financial sector but simply to simultaneously make every e-mail and Of my goats, but the message in question was intended not as a response to me but as an aside to some of the recipient’s co-workers, sighing over the kinds of expenditures on which I was frittering away my Most of the responses I received expressed appropriate admiration and envy Relevant here and had sent out a mass e-mail with photographs of the goats attached to illustrate that a) I had goats, and b) it was good. Is Bad - the dreadful consequence of hitting “reply all” instead of “reply” or “forward.” The context is that I had rented a herd of goats for reasons that aren’t This is one of the darker hazards of electronic communication, Reason No. Recently I received an e-mail that wasn’t meant for me, but was about me. A gallery of contributors count the ways.
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