Not to beat a dead horse, but I think our BlitzMail system is one of the most evil creations this world has ever seen. Since my freshman fall last year I have probably sent at least 8,000 blitzes. Since the first day of classes this fall I have sent 173, and I've been deliberately trying to avoid blitzing whenever possible. I tell you this just so you understand that I have some small knowledge in this area, despite all those brain cells I've reportedly been killing lately.
Let me tell you why. First, you can never organize anything on blitz. Let's say you want to go to dinner with your friends. You blitz them. That takes a minute. Assuming they are home it takes them each a minute to reply saying "Where should we go? :)" Then you have to write back to each of them, "Thayer, where else? =0) " Then they write back, "Oh...right. Thayer, of course...When? ;>) " Then you write back, "Now!!!!! =( " Then they write back, "Okay, I'll be there in 20 minutes. ]=+_ " Half an hour later you roll into Thayer to get dinner, but, oh no, as you were leaving your room you "just missed" a blitz from your friend telling you he/she would be late. BUT, they have computers in Thayer! Schweet. I can keep my security blanket with me wherever I go! Oh, they're going to be late. Oh well, guess I'll sit on this table and look like a loser while everyone else meets their friends and has a lovely dinner. This has happened to me countless times. I'm sure I'm not the only one. Or at least I hope I'm not the only one.
Second, humor doesn't come across well on blitz. Whenever I blitz someone and try to make a joke, I can never tell whether they get it or not. Again, I hope I'm not the only one this happens to. Why else do we have all these damn winking sideways smiley faces to make sure everyone knows that we are kidding? If anything, the smiley face confuses me more. Guys aren't allowed to use smiley faces in blitzes to other guys (it's just not manly to smile), and girls use them so much that I feel like I'm being bombarded with love and affection (which definitely is not happening).
So, if I want to say something funny over blitz, it rarely comes out right. And it's really easy to come across like a weirdo if a blitz is to someone you don't know very well and it contains humor in it. For example, last spring I received a blitz from an acquaintance which read simply "I want you." Now, I didn't know this acquaintance very well, and we had met under somewhat less than normal circumstances. I had no idea what to do with it. I sat there and thought about it for 5 minutes and finally wrote back "You're sassy" or something stupid like that. What had really happened was that one of my friends was in her room and had sent it from her computer (of course that could never really happen to me). For those five minutes though, I thought I had stumbled across a most interesting situation. Needless to say I did not appreciate the humor of my friend.
Third: drunken blitzes. They are the scourge of many, the friend of none, and the cause of much unnecessary conflict and embarrassment. If you come home one night and you are not sober, and you think that you really want to blitz someone you saw that evening or you just want to let someone know that "gosh, I think you are just the greatest" or if you had an argument and want to clear it up or if you simply come home drunk and check your blitz, do not reply or send new messages to anyone. Just don't do it. If you're not careful, eventually you will wake up one morning and click open the good old Sent Messages folder and there will be nineteen blitzes you don't remember sending to people you don't even know telling them about the undying flame inside you which burns only for them. It has happened and it will happen to you.
Fourth and finally: social relations. I have seen girls sit at their computer on Sunday afternoon and delete 20+ blitzes all from guys they met that weekend, and without even reading them. Blitz is a weak escape from showing actual interest in a person and having the courage to let them know that. Plus, trying to get stuff together over blitz, say dinner or something, is impossible. It just is. I'm as guilty of it as the next person. Use the phone. Get some guts, call whoever it is you want to talk to, and have an actual conversation. It's really not that hard after you do it for a while. The trick is weaning yourself off of blitzmail.
So, next time I write a really offensive opinion, and you think I suck or I'm right or I'm Jojo the idiot circus boy with his pretty new pet, call me and tell me. Or do what Glen Frank did and write to The Dartmouth. I don't care if I know you, just don't blitz me. 6-5444.
