Please Wait To Flirt

You know how it is with arguments: you only think of the right thing to say about thirty minutes too late...after you've slunk away the loser. There's always the desire to call or email that person and let him or her know just how clever you can be, but there was no way to do it without getting personally involved. Until now.
Erik Riesenberg once got an email that noted his need to trim his nose hair, and that sparked an idea. Why couldn't he make such messages available to everyone...anonymously? The creativity inspired by the internet took over, and now anyone can send an anonymous note covering one of eight categories. The sender has to select from a list (no personal messages which might include profanity and REALLY hurtful messages) and off it goes. Categories range from Office Etiquette: "Please don't disrupt other cubicles;" "I really like your new haircut;" "The added weight makes you look more healthy" and a host of others. One category supplies basic phrases of praise, but most offer "suggestions" for improvement though none has an aggressive tone. For example, in the Sports Etiquette category, one can send the following suggestion: "Please wait to flirt until after the game is over." On and on it goes. I will leave it to you to discover the rest.
Not everyone is impressed with the potential of the sight. Justin Kruger, a marketing professor at NYU suggests that anonymity "...leads to deviant, socially irresponsible behavior." Peter Post, grandson of the famed etiquette maven Emily Post, suggests that not everyone would be thrilled when he said, "How would YOU feel to get a message like this?" I'll admit that I would be taken aback a bit if someone sent me the message "Please refrain from slapping people's buttocks" especially when, according to experts, people can provide the correct interpretation of emails only 50% of the time. Putting a constructive comment into a context would be much easier if one were given voice inflection and body language clues. However, one might also be the recipient of a knuckle sandwich under such circumstances as well, so maybe anonymity isn't bad after all.
Want to check it out? Go to nicecritic.com. More than a hundred thousand have done so already, including me. Look for a helpful message soon!