The Spam Wars

Is it just me or is the spam in my inbox starting to get a little bit personal?

Maybe it's the effect of having to routinely clear hundreds of spam mails offering me sex aids, penis pumps, degrees in subjects I am supremely unqualified for and pills with highly questionable ingredients and side effects out of my work and personal inboxes but it's all got a bit much for me lately. In fact I've started to feel the spam is speaking directly to me and I don't really like it.

Why Be an Average Man any Longer? The subject line in my inbox wants to know.

Are you really happy with the size of your penis? It goes on to question anyone foolish enough to open it. And If you are then your girlfriend or wife probably isn't. Despite the fact that I am, actually, quite happy with the lack of any such appendage on my body the spam’s continued insistence that, despite what I may think, I am in fact only half a man starts to make me feel insecure. Could it be bigger? Should it be? Would I, in fact, be happier if I had a six foot penis to throw over my shoulder?

Delete.

Worse still are the subject lines that use my name. These little suckers really take it to another level - first giving me a moment of hope that somebody I actually know has emailed me and then using that second of weakness to plunge the knife home.

So Tell Me Kate, Are You Healthy? The latest unsolicited email from Boost Juice wants to know. Wow, what a warm and chatty tone. It’s just like talking to a friend… except wait a minute… Sure I have a diet coke in one hand and some kind of pastry good in the other but is that really your business, Mr Spam?

As it happens I like a good Boost Juice every so often but, upon reading this, I vow never to go back, eyeing my pastry balefully and taking a few experimental steps to see if my thighs rub when I walk.

Delete.

Make Your Fat Friends Jealous! The next one tempts me. What kind of person does this spam think I am? Apparently the sort of person who wants to drop twenty pounds so I can smugly offer my (soon to be former) best friend if she wants to have my ‘fat clothes’ before I throw them out. That's just... wrong.

Delete, delete and delete again but this time I’m thinking war and it's your fault, Sir Spamalot. Imply I have a tiny, flaccid penis if you like. Suggest I’m an uneducated yob in need of a degree in nanotechnology from a university run out of a creepy old man’s spare room if you feel the need. But make fun of the fact that yes sometimes my thighs do rub together when I walk and call me a bad friend and I will cut you.

It has begun.