OK, my friends have stopped forwarding me the "Oh, I wish I'd kissed the dog more, danced naked while everyone was watching, and turned off the TV" inspirational email.

Now they've moved on to the super saccharine sickly sweet "You are so special to me" stories/chain letters/small animal pictures/poems/etc. - which inevitably come with the instructions that I am to send the email "back to the person who sent it to you" and then on to everyone else I care about. *

That is followed by the little chart informing me that the number of emails I receive in return is now directly related to how special I am. 1-2 emails returned, I suck. 10 or more, I'm wonderful.

Look, if you are so insecure about our friendship that you need me to return these damn sappy forwards back to you so you can feel good about yourself, GO GET COUNSELING. I refuse to have my friendship and sincerity held hostage by bad poetry, puppy pictures or chain letters.

The email themselves are bad enough, but it's the requirement to return/forward, in order to prove you care about someone, that really irks me. Especially since these email almost always come from people who hardly ever email me for any other reason.

You want me to know you care about me - JUST FRICKING SAY SO. You want to know if I care about you - JUST FRICKING ASK. You want to email me something - then tell me what's going on in your life, how's work, how's your family, what's the last movie you saw, etc.

IS THAT SO HARD?

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READ A PARODY OF THE FRIENDSHIP EMAIL

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A variant of the friendship email is the "Women are so wonderful and men suck" email, which also requires forwarding - though, in this case, to the "Super Women" in my life.

I respectfully submit the argument that men can't possibly suck that much, because you never get a friendship email from a MAN, now, do you?

Another variant of such email tells me to send the email on to at least 10 people so my wish will come true.

Here, I have a wish: I WISH YOU'D STOP SENDING ME THESE LAME, CHEESY ASS DESPERATE FRIENDSHIP RANSOM NOTES.

* Believe me, if you never receive a friendship email from me, it means I DO CARE ABOUT YOU.