more on harassment
It may be, though, that another approach might be tried. That is, that my email might be considered harassment simply because of the fact that it was sent.
Looking back at the history of my emails to this person over the past two years, i find i've sent twenty. I include only those sent exclusively to this person, rather than to a larger group of which this person was one. Nine of them sent in the last twelve months, eleven in the preceding twelve months.
Of the nine sent in the past year, four were sent in a perplexed and angry response to accusations made against me by this person in an email sent to me as well as to various other persons. Of the other five, one was the recent offending email, and another was a brief, tersely worded email raising concerns about things this person might be saying to third persons about me. Of the remaining three, two were very brief, one containing a joke, the other providing the address of a blog I liked. The only other email (the furthest back in time) contained, as an attachment, editorial comments about the first draught of a novel I’d written, in which this person was described, thinly disguised. The content of this email, as well as those of the previous year, indicate that my relationship with this person was rather more cordial then than now.
I should mention that, though this person asked me to remove their name from a mailing list which I used to send emails involving political reflections, reviews etc, in August 2003, no mention was made then that I should stop sending emails of any kind. In fact one of the reasons given for not wishing to receive such emails was that they didn’t want their names on a mailing list which might allow persons unknown to discover their email address. After August 2003 I continued to send very occasional emails to, and indeed to occasionally visit this person, who in any case I encountered socially on a regular basis. At no time did I receive any complaints about emails between August 2003 and October 2004, when I received a bitterly complaining and indeed threatening email about an SMS message I had sent more than a month before. The SMS message was indeed unfortunate and I apologised for it, but I was bewildered by what I considered an extraordinary level of response, in which accusations were made for the first time about harassment and unsolicited emails. I responded very strongly and very fulsomely to this in an email of October 13 2004.
However, I admit to being in error in one important respect over this last email (of March 5), because in that email of October 13, I wrote ‘let me swear that this will be absolutely the last email or SMS I ever address to you’.
Oops.
I confess to having forgotten this promise. I write a lot, probably far too much, so that it’s like conversation with me, and I assume that people won’t take exception to my conversation, or maybe that they’ll forgive me when they hear the fascinating things I have to say. My enthusiasm got the better of me, mea culpa. I hope it’s not a hanging offence.
That, I hope, is the end of this story.
Looking back at the history of my emails to this person over the past two years, i find i've sent twenty. I include only those sent exclusively to this person, rather than to a larger group of which this person was one. Nine of them sent in the last twelve months, eleven in the preceding twelve months.
Of the nine sent in the past year, four were sent in a perplexed and angry response to accusations made against me by this person in an email sent to me as well as to various other persons. Of the other five, one was the recent offending email, and another was a brief, tersely worded email raising concerns about things this person might be saying to third persons about me. Of the remaining three, two were very brief, one containing a joke, the other providing the address of a blog I liked. The only other email (the furthest back in time) contained, as an attachment, editorial comments about the first draught of a novel I’d written, in which this person was described, thinly disguised. The content of this email, as well as those of the previous year, indicate that my relationship with this person was rather more cordial then than now.
I should mention that, though this person asked me to remove their name from a mailing list which I used to send emails involving political reflections, reviews etc, in August 2003, no mention was made then that I should stop sending emails of any kind. In fact one of the reasons given for not wishing to receive such emails was that they didn’t want their names on a mailing list which might allow persons unknown to discover their email address. After August 2003 I continued to send very occasional emails to, and indeed to occasionally visit this person, who in any case I encountered socially on a regular basis. At no time did I receive any complaints about emails between August 2003 and October 2004, when I received a bitterly complaining and indeed threatening email about an SMS message I had sent more than a month before. The SMS message was indeed unfortunate and I apologised for it, but I was bewildered by what I considered an extraordinary level of response, in which accusations were made for the first time about harassment and unsolicited emails. I responded very strongly and very fulsomely to this in an email of October 13 2004.
However, I admit to being in error in one important respect over this last email (of March 5), because in that email of October 13, I wrote ‘let me swear that this will be absolutely the last email or SMS I ever address to you’.
Oops.
I confess to having forgotten this promise. I write a lot, probably far too much, so that it’s like conversation with me, and I assume that people won’t take exception to my conversation, or maybe that they’ll forgive me when they hear the fascinating things I have to say. My enthusiasm got the better of me, mea culpa. I hope it’s not a hanging offence.
That, I hope, is the end of this story.
posted by Stewart at 2:06 pm
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