I am a veritable spork in my usefulness, in fact.

Exactly - Dominik is the one managing his level of communication, not you, and is managing (or in this case not managing) his public persona - and thereby image.

I think it's fairly unreasonable to expect a semi-automated email to be responded to in the same way one would an actual person, for it does not represent an actual person so much as their manufactured image.

Dark or crack is the only way to go with it, I think. Unless it's John/Mary