Fear and Loathing at the In-Box

I don't know about you, but there are times when I really hate to check my email.


Seriously.

At least I don't hear that cheery "You've got mail!" when I go to my various email accounts. That would scare and depress me even more.

It could be that I tend to send email requesting things that I might, if I were in my less-than assertive mind, never think of requesting--like press credentials for conferences, or meetings with people who have no idea who I am.

I like to push boundaries--but hate when the boundary comes down on me like the Great Wall of China, or one of those Maxwell-Smart-in-the-basement metal doors swinging shut on my nose. But sometimes I hate it when NO boundary comes down--when I get that email that says "sure! why not?"

and then I think "how the heck did I talk myself into this one?"

Mom used to be good at saying that people were trying to trick me, that they wanted to see me fall on my face and that's why they said it was okay. That's such an odd way to think about things. The reality is, though, I'm not that important and I'm not the world's goat. I've learned to think that it's really because people, depending on the people, are actually interested in giving someone new a break--that chutzpah is sometimes a good trait and it's a chance to shine.

But the conflict over what to believe makes me sometimes not click that mouse button to open the email until much later in the day...

I've had to become conscious of the dysfunction in order to re-program the dysfunction. Takes time though. We always want to think mom wouldn't steer us wrong. That's not always true.

Sometimes I'll ask a friend a bunch of questions, not realizing that the questions I've asked Transgress The Unwritten Law and are in "bad taste" or "too prying." I've learned that some things that I think are no big deal to ask in one part of the country are the things that other people think are super-impolite. Honestly, the measure of politeness sometimes depends on the culture or class you come from and where you currently live. There are ways in which we talk to one another back in Jersey that are ways in which you don't talk to other people in other parts of the country. Or I'm "delightfully gritty" because I still have a bit of that working-class patina that either walks all over convention or is overly-polite.

Where's that comfortable bourgeois middle ground?

Or maybe I've mis-interpreted what someone has said to me, thinking it's an invitation to write again when it's really a kiss-off. That usually results in *not* receiving an email in return.

So not getting email can be as panic-inducing as receiving email.

There are times when I'm expecting something, and I'm not getting it on *my* timetable. I forget that some of the folks I know are super-busy and have other things to do. Then I have to create a timetable in my head as to when I'll email them again. Would a Wednesday reminder email for something discussed on a Friday phone call be too early? Is waiting a week, or week and a half, appropriate when waiting for an assignment or an approval or even a rejection?

So then I expect not to receive something--and when I do, I expect it to be a kiss-off or bad news in some other way anyway.

Wow...talk about neurotic.

Maybe rather than opening my email while I'm having my morning coffee, I should open it up with a morning valium. Turn off the brain and just do it.

yeah, as if that could ever happen....