Janet Crenshaw had quietly expected a myriad of witty, clever and warm responses after sending a sassy email suggesting a girls’ night out. To her dismay, several hours passed with no response, leaving Crenshaw to wonder if she had, in fact, said the wrong thing.
A couple of hours after sending the email, Crenshaw figured it was a little strange, perhaps slightly rude, that not even one of her six friends managed to respond. Aside from saying “y’all” at one point, and suggesting they maybe go to Ruby Tuesdays, Crenshaw just wasn’t sure what she could have done wrong.
After waking in a sweat later that night, she checked her phone to find five new messages in her inbox. “This is it! I knew it!” she thought. But there were only four prayer-chain emails and an online appeal urging her to sign a petition for peace in Syria. “I must have said something wrong or else they have all collectively decided to turn against me via this passive-aggressive lack of response.”
In a frenzy, Crenshaw headed straight to her Sent Mail folder. “Did I start it with ‘hey’ instead of ‘hello’ and piss everyone off with my lack of formality? Did I accidentally mention Tanya’s dog, the one that just died? Did I use too many exclamation points!!!!?”
Crenshaw poured over the email she had so excitedly crafted, reading line by line aloud, over and over again, using different intonations, imagining every possible way her words could be read, including each woman’s voice who received it. She could not find a single flaw with her perfectly crafted email. It was the most perfect email she had ever written.
And then it dawned on her. “They just…hate me! And they are cutting me out of the group and their lives and they’re all laughing at me and my stupid email and oh my God, everything’s over!” At this moment she got a text from Danielle, “Sry girl just saw this kinda busy that night” Crenshaw peeled herself from the floor and responded, “no worries : ).”
Woman Pores Over Nice Email That Never Yielded A Response
