Email Reply
Email Reply
[Cueball sits at a desk, typing on a laptop. The following message is displayed above him:]
Dear Kevin,
I'm sorry it's taken me two years to reply to your email. I've built up so much stress and anxiety around my email inbox; it's an unhealthy dynamic which is more psychological than technical. I've tried one magical solution after another, and as each one has failed, deep down I've grown more certain that the problem isn't email – it's me.
Regardless, these are my issues, not yours; you're my friend, and I owe you the basic courtesy of a response. I apologize for my neglect, and I hope you haven't been too hurt by my failure to reply.
Anyway, I appreciate your invitation to join your professional network on LinkedIn, but I'm afraid I must decline...

Cueball is sitting at his desk writing an email . He is responding to Kevin, who sent him an email two years ago. Cueball is so far behind in responding to his email, he goes to great lengths to apologize for it. Instead of blaming the email culture which creates enormous quantities of messages, he blames himself for not keeping up. Failing to answer emails is a common symptom of general anxiety disorder, a problem which can snowball out of control as more and more emails go unread or unanswered.
At this point in the email, the reader assumes that Kevin's message really demanded a faster response, being personal and timely. Then Cueball reveals that the email is just the ubiquitous LinkedIn invitation. LinkedIn is a professional networking site notorious for inundating its users with emails inviting them to connect to other users (frequently people the user has little-to-no connection to), as well as any email contacts of their users whether or not they actually belong to LinkedIn themselves. Thus, an invitation to connect to LinkedIn is most often immediately deleted or ignored. A less socially anxious person who understands the irrelevance of such an email would not worry about failing to respond to such a request at all, and certainly would not pour his heart out in apology for failing to reply.
The title text makes Cueball's overinvestment in the email even more exaggerated, suggesting that Cueball is rejecting the invitation not because of its pointlessness, but because he feels that as a bad friend who doesn't respond to emails, he is no longer even worthy of it.
One could interpret the letter as a passive-aggressive lashing out, but that does not seem to be in character for Cueball . Had the character worn a Black Hat though...
Cueball's difficulty in checking his email was previously addressed in 1783: Emails (trivia: the comic numbers 1783 and 1873 are anagrammatic).
This is the fourth comic within a year where Randall uses "Kevin" as a go-to-name, although it was half a year since last time in 1795: All You Can Eat . See details in that comic's trivia .
[Cueball sits at a desk, typing on a laptop. The following message is displayed above him:]
Dear Kevin,
I'm sorry it's taken me two years to reply to your email. I've built up so much stress and anxiety around my email inbox; it's an unhealthy dynamic which is more psychological than technical. I've tried one magical solution after another, and as each one has failed, deep down I've grown more certain that the problem isn't email – it's me.
Regardless, these are my issues, not yours; you're my friend, and I owe you the basic courtesy of a response. I apologize for my neglect, and I hope you haven't been too hurt by my failure to reply.
Anyway, I appreciate your invitation to join your professional network on LinkedIn, but I'm afraid I must decline...
