Just got one of those forwarded emails. You know the sort – multiple headers with every sender’s complete address book in each one. And a message body that consists of a few “uplifting” homilies (“Because we cram so much into our lives, we tend to schedule our headaches.. We live on a sparse diet of promises we make to ourselves when all the conditions are perfect!”) followed by an instruction to send it on to everyone. The excuse for this particular forward was:

It’s Friendship and FAMILY WEEK Show your friends how much you care. Send
this to everyone you consider a FRIEND. If it comes back to you, then you’ll know you have a circle of friends.
To those I have sent this to… I cherish our friendsh! ip and appreciate all you do.

So. Let me get this right. To show somebody that you consider them a valuable friend, you send them this load of email dreck? The identical email dreck that you have just sent out to everyone in your address book?
As it happens, I don’t even know the person who sent it to me – we share an email list, but, as far as I can remember, we’ve never met. I’ve certainly never had a personal email from him/her and I don’t consider them a friend.
For me, a friend is somebody you can share things with, call up and at time to grouse or weep with, go round to their house to be fed, share jokes and good times and bad times with. In other words, not somebody you would send this stuff to!