Why I email complete strangers
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Why I email complete strangers
February 6, 2026
Zachary Kai
6 minutes read
The first time I emailed a stranger, I swear my cursor hovered over Send for a full five minutes.<br>I had plenty of justifiable reasons to remain hesitant. Not wanting to take up their time, feeling bothersome, worried my question was a silly one... A hundred disparate excuses leading back to the same core: "I’m not enough." That’s the forever curse of low self-esteem. The best and worst-case scenario can never occur, because you’ve rejected yourself first. Who knows how the other is going to respond?<br>That’s where the rub is, isn’t it? The terrifying unknown.<br>Yet, despite all the odds, I’ve moved through that suffocating fear. And you can do the same too. Allow me to explain.<br>Email is old. More established than the smartphone, the hyperlink, and even the beloved internet.<br>While Tim Berners-Lee was still only theorizing on what would later become the World Wide Web, programmers were already sending each other emails. Ray Tomlinson sent the first email from one computer to another in 1971, choosing the @ symbol to separate the sender from the host machine.<br>That was 54 years ago. And a few hours previous, as I write this in 2025? I continued what he started.<br>Email is an oft-cited example for demonstrating Lindy’s law: a theory positing that something’s future life expectancy is in proportion to its current age. The longer something lasts, the longer it’ll continue.<br>Social media platforms rise and fall like ancient empires sped up a thousand times. Yet email endures. Like the postal service or the printed book. Is it any coincidence these technologies remain my great loves? They share a quality I struggle to name. Perhaps it’s permanence in an ephemeral world. You can tuck a letter in a drawer, discovering it decades later. A book can outlive its author by centuries. One can archive, search, and treasure an email. They’re all vessels that honor my beloved words.<br>And in their longevity is their flexibility. You can read a book anywhere, anytime. You can send a letter to the farthest-flung corners of the earth imaginable. And you can email anyone.<br>Whoever you are, wherever you are, however you send and receive your emails, it’s there for you. And if you ever leave, you can take it all with you. Or change it over. Can the same be said for anything on a social media platform? Perhaps not. An email can be spam, sure, just as a letter can be junk, or a book unenjoyable.<br>The other thing I love about this communication method is it can be intentional, meaningful, hope-filled, and considerate. Or just kind. You can make a small difference with each one you send. Just like a smile.<br>I’ve been thinking about why it continues to feel special. Even though it’s an integral part of our age of instant everything, the way we treat it doesn’t have to operate on perpetual now’s terms.<br>You can choose to engage with it in human time, and so can the recipient: compose when you have something to say, respond when you have space to think.<br>This breathing room creates something rare: conversations that deepen rather than scatter. Unlike the terror-inducing typing indicators and read receipts of instant messaging, email lets thoughts linger. You can draft, reconsider, refine. It’s communication that honors people’s rhythms.<br>Over the past year, I’ve sent countless emails to writers, developers, bloggers, artists, thinkers, and poetic web folks. Not all replied — and why should I expect them to? — but so many did.<br>I’ve never experienced the slow death that is the commercial or corporate inbox, but for the first time in my life, I don’t dread my inbox. I look forward to opening it.<br>Each connection, no matter how fleeting, started with a simple email.<br>So, why do we hesitate?<br>There’s something vulnerable about sending missives out into the void, not knowing if you’ll be welcomed or ignored. We’ve been conditioned to think of unsolicited contact as unwelcome.<br>While much of it is…there’s a difference between spam and genuine effort.<br>There’s something to be said for respecting the other person’s time and attention.<br>Approaching someone when you’ve engaged with their work, when you have something specific and meaningful to share or ask…you’re not being intrusive. You’re being human.<br>The worst thing that can happen? They don’t reply. And it’s not that bad.<br>Their silence says nothing about your worth. They might be busy, taking a break from email, or not in a place where they can engage with new folk…who knows? And what does it matter?<br>Wait. Is that you asking for guidelines on navigating this hobby? (Even if you weren’t, I’m going to continue, because I still think you’ll find at least one thing useful!)<br>Here’s a list. Not rules, per se, but principles. Or mistakes I’ve made you’ll never have to.<br>Don’t contact someone unless you’d want to consider them a friend.<br>If they have a place on the web, wander through it....