20-40-60 etiquette...Are e-mail jokes ok?

YOU ASK! WE ANSWER! YOU DECIDE!

QUESTION: When people forward me an e-mail about a political issue, they assume I am of like mind.  Most of the time I do not appreciate the humor behind the e-mail and so a lot of the time I delete the e-mail from certain friends without reading them because I know that I might be offended. Is there a polite way to tell “friends” to stop sending me jokes and unwanted e-mails?

I also don’t like forwarded e-mails with all of the names and forwards on them!

CALLIE’S ANSWER: I can understand not wanting to be sent forwards, they do get annoying. If you feel it is necessary to tell the person sending them to you, or confront them, then do so.

Although, it really doesn’t hurt you to just delete the e-mails.

I get a ton of random, unwanted e-mails, and I just pick the emails that pertain to me.

LILLIE-BETH’S ANSWER: Just like beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, an e-mail’s perceived value lies in the person sent it to you. They’re forwarding it because it resonated with them. You’re not going to find all of your friends’ e-mails as funny, interesting or meaningful as they do, just as I know that my friends aren’t going to feel the same about the ones that meant something to me. I rarely forward anything anymore and try to send e-mails only to people who I think will care about that particular subject.

When I get an occasional e-mail that I disagree with, I just hit “delete” and go about my day, happy to hear from a friend who thought of me and wanted to connect briefly.

If the e-mails are untrue, with the intent of scaring you about subjects like swallowing spiders in your sleep or repeating false political gossip about a candidate’s secret life, I’ve been known to go online to check the allegations out (at a site like snopes.com or urbanlegends.about.com) and reply to the person with a link explaining it, saying “You might not know this, but this is just a rumor.” Even if I agree with the message, the journalist in me would rather people be spreading facts instead of innuendo.