Email, indeed all forms of electronic messaging, present the most menacing form of communication. Why? Once you send an electronic message you can’t take it back. Yes, you can delete it but someone, somewhere probably has it.

Electronic messages can hurt feelings. End friendships. Make a fool of us. The most innocent of messages can be misinterpreted.

Relationship experts tell us that 93% of communication is nonverbal. The tone of voice, the body posture, the eyes indicate more than the words. An email message or a Facebook post leaves us exposed, denuded and stripped of nonverbal cues.

These thoughts were driven home this weekend when a good friend sent a very nice comment about a blog I had written. I replied with thanks and a short “twinkle in the eye” annotation. Later that night I realized my friend might have misunderstood my innocent statement as a put-down, a snub, a barb, a jibe.

You might say, “That’s neurotic thinking. It’s unimportant. It’s a little thing.”

Not to me and, perhaps, not to my friend.

To avoid these unintended discombobulations, I considered these options for myself:

• Never send an electronic message that would cause problems if leaked to the general public.
• Avoid humor. What’s funny to you may be insulting to the recipient. 
• Remember the sensitivity of others. Just about all of us have fragile egos.
• Keep emails short, concise, pithy. The more you write, the more your ideas can be misread.  
• Delete any sentence that has the slightest possibility of being misinterpreted.
• Never send a critical, harsh, or angry email. Use the Abraham Lincoln approach. When angry Lincoln wrote a scathing message, read it several times, and once his temper had subsided he destroyed it.
• Never write a electronic message out of vengeance or spite.
• Refuse to argue electronically. Indeed no one ever wins an argument.
• Avoid gossip or negative comments about others.  
• Spread good news and goodwill.