puella
Posts: 2457
Joined: 12/2/2004 Status: offline
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Hello Calandra, Interesting question. In the end, of course, people will reject however they see fit. I used to not respond at all, especially if it was someone who was being rude, but my former owner showed me how that was quite ungracious, when in 9 cases out of 10 the person who sends you email, is usually being quite kind and courteous. He was, as usual, right. If someone said hello to me on the street, I would simply say hello back. It is just courteous. Now, I try to always send back some sort of thank you for the kindness of their initiation, and try to briefly explain that I am not in a position where I can serve. Depending upon what was said in the initial email from the person, I will usually keep it as brief and gracious as possible. Sometimes I will say a bit more, depending upon my mood and the tone of the email. I have always tried to employ the theory that it takes just as much effort to be kind as cruel... so unless they are really being awful in a message sent to me, I try to 'play nice'.
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