October 5, 1997

Errant E-Mail Sends Seeds of Mischief, Love

By LAWRENCE VAN GELDER

aybe people should take a licensing test before being allowed to send electronic mail. Maybe e-mail, like pistols and rifles, should come equipped with a safety catch so that no one blasts off a message without indulging in what the lawyers like to call forethought. Misdirected messages, as the anecdotes that follow make clear, can be dangerous. But while the words of the unwise often cause mischief, they are sometimes the stuff of love.

Illustration: Stuart Goldenberg

As a first-year associate at a large Wall Street law firm, Gilman Miller was so wrapped up in his work one day that he didn't have time for a two-minute break to call his girlfriend. He decided to send her an e-mail message to let her know that she was on his mind.

"Just thinking of you," he typed. And he sent the message without noticing that he had mistakenly clicked on two addresses, including one that dispatched his little billet-doux to all 1,000 of his fellow employees.

In a short time, the phone calls began. Colleagues started poking their heads into Miller's office to thank him for expressing his hidden feelings. The computer messages began arriving, too: "I didn't know you cared," and "I was just thinking of you, too" and "But I don't even know you."

Miller was instantly famous.

"Almost every response I got was positive," he writes. "I'm just glad I didn't have the time that day to compose a more personal or risqué message."

ix months ago, Danny Bozarth of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., started a new job as operations manager for a consumer goods marketing company. When his employer asked for his e-mail address, Mr. Bozarth gave him his America Online master screen name, which he uses to correspond with family members, business associates and former co-workers.

Bozarth, who belongs to several nudist organizations, says he has an alternative screen name that included the word "nude." That name is published in these organizations' directories, and he uses it for casual chat on AOL.

On the Internet, he writes, he found a Web site he thought would interest his employer. He composed a professional letter to him and linked the Web site. But Bozarth forgot that he was using his nudist-related name when he sent the e-mail.

The next day Bozarth's boss waited until 6 P.M. to ask if he wanted all his mail sent there in the future.

"I have never been so embarrassed," Bozarth writes.

ezra Kaye's husband is a musician who travels often. Last month, when he was backstage at a gig, he used an acquaintance's laptop to send her an e-mail love note. Even after 22 years of marriage, Ms. Kaye said, she was so moved by this gesture that she shot back a reply from Brooklyn telling him how much she loves being married to him and how, among other things, "he is the hottest man alive."

Ms. Kaye, however, failed to note that her husband had logged onto AOL under the acquaintance's name. The next day, she received a sweet, befuddled message:

"Thanks for the kind words, but I don't think I know you.

"P.S. When did we get married?"

avid Simon of Manhattan works for a large multinational corporation and often receives misdirected mail, telephone calls and e-mail for a man named David Simons.

One day Simon received some racy e-mail from a woman in the company's London office. She said she was looking forward to his visit. She suggested that they meet at a restaurant in the financial district the next evening. If he had any doubts about recognizing her, she said she would be wearing the same leather jacket that he enjoyed her in the previous time and the same red bra he enjoyed her out of. The message contained more in the same vein.

Simon had never heard of the woman and had no plans to visit London. As for the other David, a married fellow, Simon thought it best to stay out of his personal life.

Simon dutifully forwarded the e-mail to him and sent a copy to the woman in London, with the words: "I think this message was intended for David Simons. But don't worry, your secret is safe with me."

About 15 minutes later, Simons replied to both Simon and the woman in London: "Nope, not for me either. But mum's the word on your rendezvous."

A half-hour later, both Davids received a reply from the woman. It read, simply: "Oops. Sorry. I'm so embarrassed."

hen Reid J. Daitzman, a clinical psychologist in Stamford, Conn., sees a new client, he often asks him or her to write an autobiography -- a thousand-word memoir about the highlights of life, including upbringing, education, work and relationships. Completion of the project is a measure of therapeutic motivation.

One client, a man in his mid-20's, worked at a Fortune 1000 corporation and was seeking help with relationship problems.

Asked to write his 1,000-word autobiography, the man returned with 8,000 words.

And then he said: "I probably won't be needing your services. I met someone. We hit it off right away, as if she knew me."

As it turned out, the man had written his autobiography at his office work station, and when he printed it, a glitch sent this confidential document, with his e-mail address, to everyone in a certain department that had a particular encryption code.

Among the recipients was a woman who read the man's life story and related to it.

"She falls in love," Daitzman writes. "She immediately knows everything about him, sensitive information which would be slowly revealed on a date, or many dates or maybe never."

And then she puts herself in the man's path, seeming to meet him by accident in the company cafeteria, where she hands him a food tray.

"They have lunch," Daitzman says. "They date. In four months, they are engaged and married."

On the day of their engagement, the woman tells him what really happened.

"He belly-laughs for five minutes," Daitzman writes, recalling that the woman was leaving the company that week she found the e-mail. "They would not have otherwise met. Thank goodness for high technology."  

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