Every once in a while, I receive an email from a friend which doesn’t have a personal message but a link with inspiring thoughts and beautiful pictures intent on uplifting my day. Even though my friend does not share a word in the email, I still appreciate the fact that they thought of me.

A second type of emailing that also serves the purpose of keeping in touch without really saying anything is the email that has been forwarded a million times because no one had the guts to go against superstition. Usually, it contains some inspiring thoughts and finishes with a dilemma: something beautiful will happen to you if you send the e-mail to 10 other people. Otherwise, it’s bad luck to stop the chain of forwarding.

This is where my cynical personality kicks in and I delete the email. I guess, so much for forwarding. I still appreciate that friends write me, though, even if it is because they had to send the email to 10 people and I was in that number. I often email them or call them right after just to say “hi.”

The third type of emailing can absolutely take advantage of you. This was my experience with TAGGED.

I received an e-mail from a friend I had not seen or heard from in years. I was excited to read her name in my inbox but the subject line made it obvious that the email comes from a third party, not directly from her. It said that she requested me as a friend on Tagged. I opened the message and saw a rectangular box with two big red buttons reading “Yes” and “No”. Right above them there was a question: “Is Mana your friend?”

At this point I knew that no matter what I clicked, I would be forwarded to another site asking me more questions. But I wanted to get in touch with my friend. To the right another box explained: “Click Yes if Mana is your friend, otherwise click No. But you have to click!” And like this was not direct enough, Tagged also added: “Please respond or Mana may think you said No” (with a sad face at the very end). So I clicked Yes.

As expected, I had to fill out a huge form to sign up. And during all this, I was encouraged with messages that I can see my friend’s photo album, I can search for other old friends of mine, and make new friends. But I didn’t care about new friends. In fact, I did not want communication with anyone other than my friend Mana. Here I should say that I am generally not involved in social networking–just not a fan of chatting with strangers. So, after a long sign-up process, I was eager to see my friend’s profile. But, it was time for advertising.

I spent a very long time clicking “No Thanks” buttons of tens of advertising forms. So far, I had to give information that I did not want to share (but it was required by the site) and waste time declining offers. By the time I was “official,” I was frustrated and irritated. I opened my friend’s profile but did not find anything there. There were no pictures, no information, or any other news from her. What a disappointment. I closed the site and continued checking my other emails for the day.

The next day, when I opened my inbox, I had five messages waiting for me from complete strangers. I wish I had created a fake address before signing up at Tagged. Two more days later, I had a total of twelve messages. Two age groups seemed particularly interested in me, middle-aged men and guys barely past their teenage years. Two of them wrote me twice asking me either to chat or to add each other as “friends.” And some of them had some creepy messages.

By the end of the third day I wanted to unsubscribe. I went on the website and found out that I can make my profile private. I would have done this earlier had I not been so frustrated by the whole sign-up/advertising process. Who would have had the patience to go play with the settings after the whole sign-up ordeal? Changing my profile status to private definitely helped. Although I still received three other messages. I guess I got tagged.