e-rejection

Looks like I missed the rise of the Paper Napkin email rejection service while I was away on vacation. And I’m glad. The concept annoys me. Whatever happened to straightforward, non-schadenfreude-oriented rejection? From the website:

Paper Napkin is a service to help passive-agressive cowards avoid people who would like to date them. If someone random asks you for your email address so they can contact you for a date, give them an email address @papernapkin.net (write it on a cocktail napkin for maximum effect) and we will send them a rejection message. You can put anything before the @ sign in the address, so feel free to use a real-sounding name so that they’ll believe it. If they actually send a message and it’s funny and/or desperate enough, it might get posted on the best-of page for us all to laugh at.

What are your thoughts?

About Halsted M. Bernard

Halsted, a/k/a cygnoir, does stuff with words. Her favourite things to do with words are keeping this diary, writing stories, and organising information. She lives in Edinburgh with her husband, two cats, a few gadgets, several fountain pens, and many books.

Posted on 21 Aug 2004 in Linklog
  • Gina

    Bah, that’s just another way to be cruel to people; just another way to continue acting like you’re in high school. If someone really is too shy to say “no” to someone asking for an email addy or phone number, they should just give an incorrect one. No need to be mean.

  • http://habitatgirl.tripod.com/hammerandnail Eva

    Seems like a marketing extension of breaking up with someone via email. I hate it when people think it’s clever to be mean.

    Welcome back!

  • http://www.livejournal.com/users/cirocco cirocco

    1. A “papernapkin.com” address written on a napkin looks fake and thus invites the very confrontation one is trying to circumvent;

    2. The only reason not to give a polite “I’m not looking to meet anyone, sorry,” to a guy who approaches you in a bar is if you find him somehow intimidating or threatening and don’t want to run the risk of provoking his rage by rejecting him. Isn’t this just risking an even greater display of narcissistic rage, considering both 1, above, and the fact that:

    3. Unless you never revisit watering holes, there is a nonzero chance that you will run into the person you rejected again. Since the lad has been not politely let down but also made to feel acutely embarrassed (the site collects followup letters from rejectees and opens them up for public ridicule, so it’s not an innocuous service), I can easily imagine this story ending in an exchange of words that includes “Fucking bitch, think you’re too good for me?”

    Bad idea all around.

  • http://allura.net/ Allura

    Obviously none of you have ever been skeezed upon (as in, “I’m not interested in meeting anyone tonight, sorry” just doesn’t cut it) by one of DC’s finest men-on-the-prowl.

    I consider papernapkin.net something I would most definitely use when a polite “thanks but no thanks” doesn’t work. And trust me, around here, it’s more often than you’d think.

  • http://over.queersville.net/ Jason

    I think we should use this as an opportunity for a creative writing exercise. Write the strangest, wackiest, perhaps creepiest emails and send them off to papernapkin and see if they get posted to their weblog. I’m totally serious about this.

    And if we get called on it, we can just say, “Wow, the service used to fake people out is getting upset about getting faked out? Dear me.” :)

  • http://www.aldahlia.net aldahlia

    There’s a phone version of that same service. And, ditto what Allura said. Some people are completely insane.

  • http://www.leckiest.com Ighnot

    Mean-spirited, oh-so-fucking-clever bullshit for shallow people.

    Welcome back. I’m in a hotel room in Geilenkirchen waiting to leave for the States! I’m about to embark on a vacation of my own.

  • Ryan

    I’ll admit that I’ve never been skeezed upon, but I do find the idea of faking someone out distasteful. In particular the public ridicule. That’s just sick. If particularly pressed for an email address, I’d go with notinterested@buggeroff.com, but that’s me.

  • http://www.cygnoir.net/quill/ Cygnoir

    I have indeed been skeezed upon, and in the event that “‘I’m not interested in meeting anyone tonight, sorry’ just doesn’t cut it”, I take out my mobile and dial 911. Seriously. I don’t fuck around with people who do not respond to “no” as a valid answer. It only took one terrifying incident for me to learn that lesson. Thus, I completely second cirocco’s comments.

    So far as Jason’s suggestion: I’m in! Who else is with me?