etiquette question, sorta...

[lph]

A friend is on holiday, and sends you a MMS by mistake, meant for someone else, with a picture from the beach and a few lines of innocent text ("bla-bla, weather's nice, say hi to everyone"). Next second you get a second message confirming that it was a mistake. Would you:

a) just ignore the whole thing. Who cares anyway.
b) use the opportunity to poke mild fun at friend. After all everybody makes that mistake once in a while.
c) lord, no, I'd NEVER poke fun at someone for something like that, it's embarrassing enough in the first place

I ask because I did b), ("Thanks for the photo - I see it's nice at the beach, catch some sun") and the friend in question went ballistic.

I was obviously expected to do c)... I just don't see what the fuss is about and am feeling mildly autistic here. Curious as to what you people say.

[Pedal Wench]

What kind of friend would go ballistic over something like that???

Another messaging etiquette question: I got a nice Thanksgiving message from a number I didn't recognize. I ignored it. Got another really nice message from the same number for the holidays. It's from Baltimore. I don't know if I know anyone from Baltimore! Do I ask who it's from?

[sfa]

It's too bad people can't buy a sense of humor because some people obviously need a new one!

I could understand getting upset if the message the friend sent was itself embarrassing or compromising in some way (topless photo, complaining about a friend of yours, etc.). In that case I'd ignore it.

In your case, though, I'd have done the same thing you did. And if I had been the friend and had gotten your message, I would have poked fun back at you (along the lines of "sucks being you! I'm enjoying the sun and you're stuck in winter hell!").

About getting messages from numbers you don't know--I always ignore them, but I guess if it keeps happening I might message back with "do I know you? I think you have the wrong number."

Sarah

[OakLeaf]

lph - yeah, you didn't do anything wrong, something's apparently going on with your friend that you don't know about.

PedalWench - when it's on the holidays, it must be family, and if you don't recognize the number it's obviously not your family. Just hit reply and tell them they have a wrong number. I do that whenever I get a wrong-number message that's obviously important (medical or family) - otherwise I ignore them.

[redrhodie]

A friend of mine recently called me 3 times in a row while I was working, so I didn't answer. After the 3rd call, I got worried that something was wrong, so I called her back. She said something to me that made no sense, about being almost at the restaurant (we were not meeting). It took a minute to realize she thought she was talking to her other friend with my first name.

I teased her the next time we talked. Not only do I think it's acceptable, but required to tease your friends. If they don't take it well, tease more. Eventually, they'll either get it, or they'll stop being your friend (good riddance).

[cobalt]

Maybe something was going on at that beach! hmmmm.... that would explain the anger.

You are fine.

[Flur]

+1 on something going on at the beach. Anger does not sound like an appropriate response (unless your friend is crazy, of course). It sounds like maybe it's supposed to be a secret, and she's scared you'll tell the wrong person?

[sgtiger]

LPH, I don't think you did anything wrong. I'd have teased too and expected to get teased back.

[Irulan]

regarding the wrong number repetitive holiday calls. I would, and I do, call back letting them know they are leaving the message on a wrong number. People appreciate it - or at least everyone I have ever called back has. You might have an elderly person who can't read or dial a number well, a number written down wrong, or other genuine mistakes.

Oh, I'm talking about people who actually leave messages not just mis-dials that show up on the ID.

[Eden]

regarding the wrong number repetitive holiday calls. I would, and I do, call back letting them know they are leaving the message on a wrong number. People appreciate it - or at least everyone I have ever called back has. You might have an elderly person who can't read or dial a number well, a number written down wrong, or other genuine mistakes.

When I was in college my husband and I rented a place and we must have had a phone number that had a lot of previous owners.... we got tons of wrong numbers on our answering machine (yes this was in the days of tape recorder answering machines and before caller ID was commonplace). Normally we just ignored them (hey, dude aren't you coming to the party.... etc) but one time there was this frantic crying woman asking for the person she was expecting to please call her..... We felt so bad and we tried to reach her, but she was so upset that we could not understand her well enough to figure out the number. I'll probably never forget that and I still feel bad that we couldn't reach her to let her know she'd dialed a wrong number.

Recently someone left a message on my cell phone answering service for someone who was obviously not me about how this person needs to get documentation about their public service or come pay their fine otherwise they are going to have a warrant issued .... I called that one back to let them know that they'd left the message on the wrong phone, but the lady was on vacation so someone only left her a message... who knows if it ever got straightened out... Then again it could have been the dummy who stole my phone (or one of her friends) who was needing to pay the fine, and in that case I hope they got arrested...

[lph]

Thanks everybody, I appreciate it. I should add that this friend is male and did send a beach photo of himself that he would normally never have sent to me, but no, it was not compromising or embarrassing in any way, not in my books.

Frankly, I can't imagine any of my friends NOT teasing me if I did something like this, so I'm totally baffled as to where the indignation came from. I'm trying very hard not to just tell him point blank that he's being a pompous ***. But you never know, I might give

[jesvetmed]

LPH: Sounds like he was embarrassed. He meant to send a photo of himself to one person, and it got somewhere else. He's embarrassed. He reacted. That is how the male half tends to deal... don't try to understand!

[Miranda]

Thanks everybody, I appreciate it. I should add that this friend is male and did send a beach photo of himself that he would normally never have sent to me, but no, it was not compromising or embarrassing in any way, not in my books.

Frankly, I can't imagine any of my friends NOT teasing me if I did something like this, so I'm totally baffled as to where the indignation came from. I'm trying very hard not to just tell him point blank that he's being a pompous ***. But you never know, I might give

Yea.. I think that is totally appropriate. Hey buddy, were you also having a dehydration problem? Too much sun and alcohol at the time also? Oh... thank you for that additional information as it would help to explain your "azz-attack".

Maybe it was for his 'other woman' ? Look at me bebe... I'm beach sexaay lol.

See, to me... people tend to forget the saying "you can catch more flies with honey versus vinegar"... I mean after receiving and being in possession of the pic, ummm... you do have the power to *forward* it also, check mate.

Maybe sucking up on his part would be a better choice that spewing acid.

[malkin]

Poke fun.
Keep on poking fun.
Have fun poking fun and keep doing it until even people who didn't have fun with it finally start having fun.

[Pedal Wench]

Okay -- I replied back that I had no idea who my Holiday greetings were from, but I think it might be one of the women I did the 3-Day with in DC.

EDIT: It WAS one of my long-lost friends from the 3-Day. It wasn't showing her name. Thanks y'all for bringing this up -- I never would have replied to the message.