S/he Email
Setting: The present future. A nearly real conversation. Before sleep, in an era of memory leaks and database conflicts. (Last night.)
He: The blog is growing. People who I don't even know are signing up for my email list now.
She: Does your email list even work?
He: Of course it does.
She: Then why haven't I gotten any email yet?
He: Until I get enough people signed up, it's a waste of time sending anything out.
She: That's not fair though. I signed up, I should get something.
He: But I could tell you right now what would be in the emails. Or go to the site. Isn't that enough?
She: No, that's different.
He: How?
She: I expect the emails.
He: No you don't. I'm telling you that I'm not sending any.
She: Until when?
He: I dunno. Until it reaches some sort of critical mass.
She: When's that?
He: Maybe when enough strangers sign up.
She: I want you to unsubscribe me.
He: What? You want to be unsubscribed for not receiving my spam?
She: I signed up, and I deserve those emails. If you're not going to send them, unsubscribe me.
He: But what if I start sending them next week?
She: I might reconsider then.
He: You mean to tell me that it really bothers you to have your name in a database, even if I don't do anything with it? That's insane. What if it sat there for millennia, doing nothing?
She: What if you bought something from me online, and I didn't send it to you...?
He: ...But what if I forgot that I even bought it from you?
She: I haven't forgotten.
He: Forget.
She: Goodnight.
He: I could send it out tomorrow, but it would be a replica of the site now. I'm not going to put any additional time into special email content right now.
She: Then at least send that.
He: But that's nothing. It's just links to other people's sites. And then no one would visit my site.
She: Oh, that old argument.
He: Yeah.
