Can We At Least Still Be Friends?

I used to belong to Toastmasters International, an organization developed to increase members’ communication skills and self-confidence.

About 6 months ago I decided I’d achieved the level of personal growth I was looking for from the club and I did not renew my member ship.

Today I got an email from Toastmasters which had a header saying:

From: Toastmasters International To: John Bunyan
Please respond to donotreply

And it started out like this:

"Dear Toastmasters Member,
Please disregard the e-mail below as it was sent in error."

The message below reported that they had noticed I had not renewed my membership. They thought this was perhaps an oversight and

"We thank you for your membership and hope you continue to enjoy and benefit from your Toastmasters experience!"

Apparently, right before they hit “send” they realized who I was.

"Oh, THAT guy? Never mind. Just tell him we sent this by mistake."

So much for communication skills.

The message reminded me of all the confusing social interactions I had with girls in high school. I was always responding to donotreply.

So much for self-confidence.

They did add this to their message:

"We apologize for the confusion."

At least that was considerate. Those girls in high school never did that.