Inflammatory emails...

We've all gotten them. In Net parlance, they are known as "flame mail" --when someone sends you an email that is inflammatory and attacking, usually something they would not say to your face or on the phone, but feel comfortable doing because of the security barrier that is email.

Tamar got one last week. I got one today. From different peoople. You may conclude that we are difficult to get along with. Possible, of course.

We responded differently. Tamar spent a lot of time thinking about it and figuring out how and when to respond. It's gone back and forth a few times.

I deleted mine.

Here's why:
1. If I can't see that the discussion is going to yield anything productive, I'm not going to waste my time.
2. If I think that emotion has totally taken over, what's the point of trying to be rational?
3. If the person who launched the flame did so via email, I've already concluded that it's more of a venting than an effort to resolve.

Knowing how life is, I'll forget about it in a week or so and move on.

Either the friendship/relationship is strong enough to endure or it's not, but responding-in any way-to a flame, at least in my experience, never ends well.