Posted by Jane D on July 2, 2001, at 16:47:25
In reply to The fool to my T., posted by Patches on July 1, 2001, at 13:45:21
Patches:
I sympathize. I have experienced the "everybody hates me" feelings. But I think you are misinterpreting what happened. Some information about email that may give you that perspective you asked for. E mail is unreliable. Sometimes you will get a message saying your message is undeliverable. Sometimes the message just disappears. You don't know that it arrived unless the person who got it tells you so. Heres a partial list of possibilities. You may never trust email again.
1. There can be a problem with either your ISP's mail server or theirs Kazoo gave one reason for this. There can be any number of others. Usually, in this case you won't be able to send or receive mail from anyone.
2. The other ISP has blocked any mail coming from your ISP. For a description of why this might happen take a look at st. james' posts in this thread on the admin board: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20010315/msgs/1276.html . When that happens neither one of you may realize there is a problem. Your mail goes through to everyone else (with a different ISP from his), he continues to get mail from everyone else (with a different ISP from yours).
3. Problem with the email program on your machine or his. This could be anything. Double check that the mail was actually sent. I've had some rude surprises over the years.
4. Human error. Bad address. You typed it wrong, or you accidentally edited your address book entry.
5. Human error. Your therapist can't use computers and is hitting delete instead of view whenever he looks at mail. Isn't likely but you never know.
6. Human error. Mail administrators at ISP's make mistakes too. Maybe one of them hit a wrong key or twenty.
7. You name it. Only the mail administrator at the ISP knows for sure and he isn't telling. Sometimes even they don't know.
So. Probably he told you the truth - he didn't get the e mail. The reason he gave will only be his guess because there is no way he can find out for sure.
You also have no evidence that he was talking about you to his wife. Far more likely he just said to her something like "Hey. Someone called me today and said they sent a bunch of emails. I never got them. What do you think happened? Has this ever happened to you?".
If you still have doubts ask him outright if it is OK for you to keep emailing. And if he says yes then don't worry about it. But you may have email problems again. If you are going to get too upset about it you may not want to use email any more.
I've seen this mentioned as a possible problem of on line counseling. I don't remember where and I don't have time to look it up but if you click on "Home" or "Links" at the top of the page here you should be able to find plenty.
Jane
poster:Jane D
thread:6975
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20010628/msgs/7003.html