How to handle pesky email chains, Zoom invites
Q: During shelter in place, you’ve received a lot of chain letters and Zoom invites. You don’t want to participate, so should you decline the invite or just ignore it?
A: I don’t find these types of chain emails a must-respond.
If you are truly interested in participating, it’s best to first reach out to the friends you intend to include and ask them if they want to participate. That way, they have the option to decline instead of feeling guilty about “breaking the chain.”
Zoom calls require a different approach because they are more personal in nature. When hosts send invites hoping to see your face and hear your voice on the line, they deserve a proper yes-or-no response.
Etiquette doesn’t dictate that you have to give a reason for declining, though. A simple, “Thank you for thinking of me. I’m so sorry I’m unable to make it this time,” will do!
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A: We’ve all experienced some of the petrifying effects of shelter in place. And if you don’t have the energy to attend a cocktail hour where we all have to take turns speaking, sipping drinks crafted from the dregs of our pantries or occasionally switching to virtual palm tree backgrounds in halfhearted attempts to be silly, just send a three-second text to decline. A lightweight “I’m not feeling up to that right now, but please have fun!” communicates that you still appreciate them thinking of you. Even just a dependent clause or two expresses that you would if you could, but today you quaran-can’t.
As for the myriad social media challenges circulating — like “send this to 10 people or your grandmother will fall in a bottomless pit” — feel empowered to swipe them away or respond with brevity. If the trauma of COVID-19 has you feeling like a piece of gum stuck to a sidewalk, that’s OK. You have no obligation to bake a cake, take a shot or re-create a TikTok dance, no matter how many times you’re tagged in someone’s story.