Evites

I’m going to make a bold statement: Evites are the downfall of manners and etiquette. 

Evite burst onto the scene in 1998 and quickly became part of the fabric of our lives, hooking us with its ease of use and transparency.'

And once the site reeled us in with cutesy-wootesy birthday and cocktail party templates, we got lazy.

Too lazy to send proper invites. I just heard today about an evite that was sent out for a small memorial service for a classy, elegant woman. She deserved better. She deserved hand-written invitations on 100-pound cardstock. If you’re having a housewarming party for everyone you know, pick a festive design and evite the shit out of your shindig. If you are having an intimate get-together to mark a significant event, care enough to send the very best. Get thee to a Hallmark, y’all.

Too lazy to explore other options for gorgeous, functional online invitation tools that aren’t littered with ads and a slow user interface. I only find out about sites like Paperless Posts when friends more adventurous than me invite me to something.

Too lazy to RSVP properly or at all. Evite notifies guests on the invite list by sending e-mails but it doesn’t include the event details. So people often don’t even bother to click through to the actual information, let alone reply. And if they do reply, they get a chance to sit on the fence with a “Maybe.” In my day, you either responded with a “Yes” or “No,” not a “I’ll try to come but I might be on a deadline.” I call bullshit.

And yet, I can’t bring myself to just say “No.” The allure of being able to peruse a guest list is irresistible. Is my frenemy going to be there? Is my former lover planning on coming with a +1? Are my favorite people opting out, leaving me to make stilted chitchat with that horribly dull man who never ever asks me a question about myself? Is that fashion plate coming? If so, that means I have to step up my sartorial game for the night. Evite allows us to make quasi-informed decisions regarding attendance without peppering the host with inappropriate questions.

So am I going to finally kick evites to the curb? “Maybe.” But I’m also indulging my love of stationery and loading up on some letterpressed invitations for my next soirée.

PayPal

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If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. 

That adage works for things like your favorite lasagna recipe, but does it really work for an online transactional site like PayPal? I want their engineering team to be constantly upgrading security measures and improving their user interface so they never are in a position to fix anything. 

I will admit that PayPal did finally—after decades of a crappy site that looked like something designed for $500 by a self-taught web designer—retool the site. So there’s that. 

However. 

As a seller, it’s still a pain in the ass to navigate your way to saved buy buttons or to create new buttons for products or services. For providing this service, PayPal takes 3 percent for every online payment. I saw Office Space; those pennies add up every time PayPal transfers money from someone’s bank to yours. 

But the real reason to punch PayPal in the face is, as a buyer, I could be providing detailed financial information to a hacker in a remote North Korean village. Like He-Man, PayPal has the power. And they often wield it indiscriminately, locking accounts for no reason and providing terrible to nonexistent customer service. 

Do I really want to trust my checking account or credit card info to the likes of PayPal? No, but the real burn is that I have no choice in the matter. PayPal is the only game in cybertown and I have to PayPal to play.

Cyber PDA

I think it’s sweet that you love each other, I really do. I’m happy to see status updates, tweets, and blog posts about your courtship, engagement, a trip, a wedding. Not only can I handle it, I’m heartened by it.

But my support of your relationship does not mean I want to be slimed with your cyber makeout sessions, oversharing, and sweet nothings all goddamned day. Tweeting about how much you miss your flaxen-haired beauty—even though you’ve only been apart an hour (which I know because you tweeted that too)—or updating your Facebook status to detail what an incredible night you had with your Sweetpea or Huggy Bear makes me, in this order, 1) roll my eyes, 2) choke back my breakfast, and 3) want to share the love. Specifically, I dream of playing cupid, pulling out a crossbow, and piercing you through the heart, or at least your fingers.

Take a note from Shakespeare: Speak low if you speak love. In other words, keep it in your pants and send your true love an e-mail. We don’t want to see that sap. That’s what porn, Jane Austen novels, and Reese Witherspoon movies are for, duh.

(photo: mywedding.com)

Security questions

Where did you take your honeymoon?
What is your spouse’s middle name?
What is the date of your wedding anniversary?
How many times a week does your first-born child say, “I love you?”

I just want to join a yahoo group or sign up for online banking; I don’t need some lazy content provider throwing my single, childless status in my face. Am I supposed to dream up answers for these questions, irrelevant for a good percentage of the population? And if I do, am I expected to remember the name I give to my make-believe Prince Charming or his childhood pet?

How about this, dingdong.com? How about asking some questions we can all collectively be annoyed about, say, for example, what year did you realize that life was going to be a giant disappointment? What body part do you particularly loathe? What hooch always results in you dropping trou at the end of the night? With whom did you have the most underwhelming sexual experience to date?

I want to bludgeon these questions with the lamp that shows up every time I log into my investment account. And if Merrill Lynch decides to swap it out for an image of a diamond ring, I’m going to have to transfer my funds.

(photo: blogs.zdnet.com)