I think all of us universally agree that spam is usually a big nuisance. Not so universal in agreement will we be if we were to talk about mail that's not exactly spam but is irritating all the same though it's sent by friends and / or people we know. In fact, I would say that there's a small section of people among us who actually love those inane forwards we get many times. If we were to compare these forwards to those mails that are generally considered spam, there's one glaring difference: the spam mails are usually commercial in nature and are sent by people we don't even know existed (and probably wouldn't care to know either, come to think of it!), whereas the forwards are usually non-commercial in nature and.... Okay, okay, I'll stop beating around the bush and come straight to the point.
In my early days of using the Internet and email, I've sent some of these very same inane forwards and "please forward: small cell lung cancer patient needs help" kind of mails. I've also been guilty of sending mails with huge - really huge - attachments (mostly some funny pictures, or purportedly funny videos) to most of my friends, under the stupid assumption that they'd be as interested in whatever it was that had caught my attention then. There is this friend of mine who had made it very clear to me that such mails were not welcome. I thought, "Fair enough!" - th0ugh to say that I wasn't hurt would not be entirely true - and that was that. Well, that part of my Net career came to an end when my eyes were opened to the existence of something called spam. And I swear I haven't been guilty of similar e-behavioural lapses since.
However, sometimes when I come across something which I think is pretty interesting, I say so briefly (in a line or two) in an email, attach the link, and send it across to a good number of my friends. However, the same friend again lashed out at me - yes, you read it right - and in effect said to me: I had been told once not to send such mails once [she chose to ignore the fact that these mails were personal]; so, let this be the last time, or else!
I was hurt because though what I was sending was unwarranted information, some of the mails that I sent were actually quite relevant to her, or so I thought. I mean, since I was a friend, the least she could do was tell me - politely - that she didn't quite appreciate those kind of mails. Knowing myself, I would have probably gotten into a friendly argument with her, the key word there being "friendly." Well!
It would have ended there if nothing further had happened. This friend sends me mails on subjects that I'd told her quite clearly were of no interest to me at all. I was - and still am - more than annoyed at her double standards. To bite someone's head off, that too a friend who is as harmless as I am - ask any of my friends if you don't believe me :-) - about an email and then sending similar email to that same person!! It certainly takes all kinds to make this world!
