The website http://www.urbandictionary.com defines E-mail courage as follows:

1. The uncanny ability to act tough and hard nosed while composing an email and then not have the backbone (balls) to do anything about the subject matter while in person or in a meeting.

2. Sending cc emails to anyone in order to prove a point, asking idiotic questions with poor grammar, Exclamation points!!!!!!!!!!

I point this definition out because I was a little surprised (although I suppose I should not have been) to find that there is not only a term, but a proper sounding definition for this type behavior. And, yes this is the same site that gives us some pretty disturbing definitions that Merriam Webster’s must have missed, but it is out there for a reason.

When you take the face to face (or voice to voice in the case of phones) out of the exchange suddenly people become just a little more civilized. How many times have you received a message in caps and red letters with !!!! following every sentence only to call the sender and they say – “Oh, no big deal.” or “I’m sorry if you misinterpreted what I meant.” Like there is any possible way to misinterpret the meaning.

We get tons of E-mail from our customers everyday and 99.9% of these are from perfectly well adjusted folks that are simply trying to get or give information and they understand how to go about it in a business like manner. But every once in a while we get a message from the complete %!$&*#@ who finds it acceptable to insult, berate, lie, include facts, exclude facts, use nonsensical examples and non sequiturs to make the point that they are somehow put out about something. Of course as long as you continue to correspond with them via the written word they will continue to be the same huge %!$&*#@ as in the beginning; but once you get them on the phone everything changes. Now they are your buddy or at the very least much less threatening. Funny how that works.

I have found that this type of behavior extends beyond E-mails to many of the other ways we currently interact with each other. E.g. facebook, my-space, twitter, forums and text messages. I’ve recently experienced the first part of this behavior while posting on Twitter and on different audio Forums. I don’t know what they call it on Twitter, but in the Forum world it is called getting “flamed”. It happens enough that folks will say stuff like “flame suite on” before they even begin a post because they know it is a subject that will get the dander up on some of the regulars. Seems a bit odd that folks you don’t even know can get so upset about something that they could just as easily let pass right on by – water off a ducks back, my Dad always says. I posted something recently which I thought was pretty well reasoned, concise and topical only to get called names (sticks & stones) while they completely missed the point. I posted a “tweet” yesterday that said “Happy 40th anniversary Apollo 11. One of the prouder moments in our country's history!” to which a guy from Boulder, CO responded “@avforsale there was never a man on the moon you idiot!” I guess the fact that he responded to 127 other folks on twitter with the exact same message should make me somehow feel less singled out, but Dude, really! This is how you spend your life - Waiting until the 40th anniversary of the moon landing to call people on Twitter idiots and tell them that Armstrong & Aldrin never went to the moon? Its one thing to be delusional, but that is just a complete waste of one’s life. I wonder if he would have called me an idiot if I were talking to him in the line of the grocery store and I said that it makes me proud that 40 years ago today our country put the first man on the moon. I’m betting not. He may have told his whole conspiracy theory about how it was really a movie shot at Area 51, but I don’t think he would not have called me an idiot.

So speaking of wasting time, I guess I am done. Think about it though – next time you want to go off on someone via E-mail, ask yourself “would I say the same thing to that person’s face?” If not, you may want to back it down a notch or better yet, just let it go. Thanks for listening.