I like getting mail. Well, email now. Nobody sends letters anymore. Okay, maybe some people still do, but they have far too much free time.

               People love to talk to their friends and share funny pictures or whatever else we have, but sometimes we take it too far. You know what I'm talking about. We all have that one friend who keeps sending crap that nobody wants. (Or several friends. Sometimes they travel in packs.)

               I love these people anyway, but sometimes you just gotta set some ground rules. Like these, for instance:

               No. I am not going to forward your message to X many friends. I want to keep those friends. Sometimes, I don't even have that many people on my friend list, and if I did I probably wouldn't forward it to them anyway. There are several reasons why.

               I won't forward the email/text/whatever if it's especially religious. I am a Christian, (depending on whose definition you're using) but I'm pretty sure God will understand if I don't share the inspirational guilt trip. That's always how those things end, isn't it? "If this were a funny joke, you wouldn't hesitate to send it on to everyone in your address book. But when it's up to you to share the Word of God, you stop and think again because you don't want to offend anyone."

"And don't think I don't know the one about the four sisters and the priest!"

                You don't know me, Email. You have no basis for making these assumptions. This is why you don't have any friends. Of course I'm not going to forward a religious email to everyone and their grandma. Not all of my friends are Christan, and their grandmothers don't even know me. What will this accomplish apart from annoying them? It's certainly not going to convert anyone. Dammit Jim, I'm an actor, not a youth pastor!

               But Mr. Self-Righteous Email thinks I'll forward anything to anyone. I don't. Like religion, people have different tastes in humor, and you still have to consider your audience before sharing funny things. Maybe they won't get it. Maybe they would be offended. Maybe they won't think it's funny. I can tell sex jokes to some of my friends, but I wouldn't tell them to their grandmas. (Unless Grandma goes first to break the ice.) This email is astonishingly lacking in basic social awareness, and I suspect the creator is too.

               Like the Religious Email, I will also not forward the Unbelievably Patriotic Email. Yes, I'm proud to be an American. No, I'm not going to scream it from my inbox. I'm perfectly comfortable with my current level of patriotism. I don't know what your problem is. Do you feel inadequate as an American? Are you trying to put up a facade to disguise the emptiness you feel inside? Or is this some sort of natural defense mechanism? Owls will fluff out their feathers to appear more intimidating. Is that it? Are you trying to fluff your feathers and frighten away all the scary foreign people?

"AAAA! Mexicans!" *FOOF!*"

               Oh, yeah...there's also that pesky audience to consider. Some people might consider your opinions on politics to be sensible and wise, while others consider them to be complete nonsense. Keep that in mind next time, especially if you're forwarding a message that keeps going on about how the fifties were some magical utopia that we should all strive for. I wasn't around then, but I've read about that decade from a historical perspective. The fifties sucked. Get over it.

               Some messages get forwarded because the sender holds the irrational belief that the computer (or cell phone) is capable of magic. Look, I know technology can appear mysterious and aloof, but come on. It's an electronic message composed of tiny bits of data. It will not affect my luck if I forward it or delete it, nor will it make any wishes come true, reveal my soul mate, provide an accurate psychoanalysis, or send creepy out-of-focus girls to kill me.

"You only forwarded it to nine friends. I'll just trip you in the shower."

                How do I know this? Because of SCIENCE! Actually, it's because I used common sense. Also, the time-release-death email gave it away. Actually, it was a text message. I was told that if I didn't forward it to five friends within an hour of receiving it, I would die that day. It was sent to me somewhere around morning, but my phone was on silent so I didn't get around to reading it until later that night. The following morning, I was astonishingly still alive.

               And for those of you who are about to tell me "Well, everyone knows she's not gonna kill you! It's just for fun!" Good for you! Send that text to someone else who thinks it's fun.

               Then there are those email that are none of the above. The ones that were created by either an 80-year-old woman who just discovered how the formatting options work, or a jerk with a grudge against aesthetics. We've all seen it- 43 different fonts in all sizes and colors, every line double or quadruple spaced, pictures that have not been scaled down, random .gifs that take forever to load, a MIDI track somehow embedded in the email...

"Hey, new message...DEAR GOD! MY EYES!"

               Somehow, these still exist. Now, I'm not naming names...Mom...but this has to stop. But to be fair, Mom's stopped doing this since she got StumbleUpon. In any case, I do like to hear from people. But I want to hear from you, not the deranged individual who created the email.