Negative Politeness
So, yesterday I received an email from someone I have been friends with for a long time. We were very close for years and just recently lost contact with each other. The email read as follows:
Hey,
Before I bother with a long, drawn out email, a question. Are you still out
there in internet land? If so, are you interested in communicating with me?
How are you?
I truly hope all is well with you. And for what it's worth, I miss you.
I highlighted the part that seems really strange to me considering the closeness of our previous friendship. I find it unusual that he would select Negative Politeness to reach out when it actually seems to put us at a distance. My question is this, why negative politeness and what perlocutions could this express?
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Comments
I agree. The way he phrases it is strange to me too. Although, he might have used negative politeness because he isn't sure you all are still friends, in case you all had a falling out or just the simple fact that you all haven't spoken to each other for a significant amount of time. A possible perlocution that he is producing is causing you to respond to his email by asking a strange question. Also, he want's conformation that you still want to be friends and want to communicate with him. Finally, if you all did have some kind of faling out his question might be a way of apologizing. Like he is implying "Hey I'm sorry and I want to be close friends again, do you?"