Congratulations?

So a few weeks ago, a found out that a couple of friends of mine are getting married. I knew this was in the cards, but with the whole new fatherhood thing, I had been out of the loop for a while, and it turned out the proposal had happened back in the early spring. Oops.

My response: write them a hasty email, as soon as possible, to simultaneously congratulate them and apologize for not having done so earlier, particularly those two or three instances that I had actually seen them since.

Well, I got the hasty part right: the email went out the next day. For some reason, though, I didn't get a response that day... or the day after... or a week after.

Had I offended them so much that they couldn't bear to respond? Were they both so busy with their professional and vocational lives that they had no time to check their email, let alone write back? Were they really getting married, or was I that victim of a subtly devious prank that had inadvertently pushed the marriage issue on this unsuspecting couple, leading them to break up, move out, and mutually end all communication?

I did get a reply, a little over a week later. To my relief, it was none of the above: instead, it was a good, old-fashioned eye goof. I had addressed the email to one member of the couple, but the other copy had gone to another friend with the same first name and first initial as the groom-to-be. When the bride-to-be suggested that she might run off with him instead, I informed her that he lived in Boston and was already married. My friend in Boston expressed surprise that he was getting married again. I told them both to call me blind.

Although it feels to me like a not-not-blind story, I have heard of this sort of thing happening to people with normal vision. People reveal trade secrets and private personal information when they type the wrong key and click "send" a little too quickly. This wasn't an issue with snail mail: it's a brand new, super-modern problem that we all seem to be prone to: just think of how often people get accidentally tagged in Facebook.

I guess it's something we all have to be wary of. You might end up marrying two of your friends, too. No good can come of that.