Was it something I said?

Rejoice, busy friends, rejoice! You need no longer be burdened by the tiresome inefficiencies of common courtesy!

Thanks to the disconnectedness of email and text communications, you can shut down any discussion, at any time, without so much as an “oops, gotta run” or “bbl.” Just—get this—stop conversing. Sure, it may seem like the online equivalent of hanging up the phone on someone. But apparently because it’s email/text, it’s perfectly acceptable!

What’s that, you say? You’ve been on the receiving end of one of these drop-offs? Perhaps you wondered if it was something you said, and scoured the previous exchange for hints of offensiveness. Nope, all clear. You smelled your armpits. Nope, lilacs. You worried if your friend succumbed suddenly to cardiac arrest. Nope, no worries. You’ve merely fallen prey to the PAOH (Perfectly Acceptable Online Hang-up).

So, friends, consider yourself unshackled from centuries of polite conversation protocol, in which one of the small prices of living in a civilized society is the occasional need to gracefully deflect a discussion topic. (“Oh, gee, we’d love to, but we have plans that night.”)

Eeeewwww! Expending 2 or 3 seconds of effort in the interest of good manners? Can you even believe people used to do that? Soooo last decade. It’s much more expedient, and so much less uncomfortable, to simply end the discussion by not responding to the last post. You know, just leave the other person waiting for a reply…and waiting…and waiting.

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