Dear Sars,

I have a netiquette question for you. WAY back in the day, when I first got an email account through my university and could only access it and newsgroups, I struck up an email correspondence with a woman who followed one of my posts. That was several years ago. This woman is a very nice person, quite a bit older than I, who lives in another state and is married, but none of that really matters – our correspondence has always been friendly and generally pleasant and has never crossed the line into being inappropriate in any way.

The issue is that while she is perfectly nice, I no longer have the time to invest in our email relationship. I know how egotistical that sounds, but at the height of our correspondence – like, when I was still an undergrad – we’d exchange 10K notes several times a day about movies, books, differences between the weather here and where she lives, and the like, but now I regard these notes as more of a chore than a pleasure. I’m at my desk all the time and find it enough of a job to keep in touch with my real-life friends. While I don’t want to hurt her feelings, I also don’t want to continue the correspondence. I had taken the coward’s way out – first, letting weeks (or months) go by between my responses, always pleading at the start of each note how very busy I am, and then by answering three notes and ignoring the fourth, hoping the message would come through. However, every couple of months, she’ll pop up again, always being very sweet and solicitous and interested in me, and I always feel guilty that I am not equally as interested in her.

I know that your advice in these “how do I say it?” situations is generally, “Just say it!” but I was hoping you might have a suggestion as to a polite yet firm way to end it without hurting her feelings.

Thanks,
Bill in BrentwoodDear Bill,

Well, yes. The next time you respond, keep it brief. Say something like, “I don’t have the time that I once did to correspond with you, so please don’t take it personally if I can’t invest the same effort in keeping in touch with you that you do with me.” Throw in a couple of lines about what’s going on with you, sign off, and leave it at that. If she continues with the lengthy notes and whatnot, that’s her choice, but if you need to delete correspondence from her in order to get on with your day, you shouldn’t feel guilty about doing so.

I’ve had the same problem with a few of my own correspondents. I conduct the vast majority of my business online, so e-mail is not a nifty diversion to me; it’s a work tool, and I don’t have time to look at every forward or give a point-by-point response to every note I receive. When I don’t respond for a week or two, or shoot back a one-line response, they usually get the point, but sometimes folks who don’t work on the ‘net per se need reminding that, for some of us, e-mail isn’t a hobby.

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