Am I Really That Odd?

[gnomi]

OK, yeah, I am. But in this case, I'm not so sure. Here's the deal. At the aforementioned family gathering, I was talking to a cousin I don't see very often, and we were trading e-mail addresses. I gave her one of my "social-business" cards (not to be confused with any of my various business-business cards) and commented that the e-mail address on the card was the best of my multiple e-mail addresses to use. And my cousin was shocked to hear that I had multiple e-mail addresses. But as I count them, I have six:

-- one at sff.net (my "default" address for sending mail)
-- one at world.std.com/theworld.com (not used very much, but still gets e-mail)
-- one at my_real_name.com (where, for instance, my LJ mail goes)
-- one at asknomi.com (where a lot of list mail goes and the one I use for replying to feedback)
-- one at the Press (for Press business)
-- one at work-work (for work-work business)

So, am I a complete freak for having 6 e-mail addresses?

Comments

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

I probably have ten or so.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Ah, good to know. I just began to wonder, since the cousin was so incredulous.

[michelel72.livejournal.com]

Six seems like the high end of "normal" for one of the computer cognoscenti. I have six myself, if I actually count them up, but only two of them are "real" for me: my work address and my auto-forwarding alum account. I have a Yahoo account only so that I could sign up for their groups; a Gmail I've never used; and two through Comcast, of which one receives the auto-forwarded mail and the other has only ever received spam.

Of course, maybe that makes me a freak for having six myself! But I can't imagine actively keeping up with six active accounts -- I have enough trouble with one! -- so maybe I'll say you are a freak after all. But the good kind. :>

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Yeah -- I have Gmail and Yahoo addresses, too, but they auto-forward elsewhere, so I didn't even mention them.

[sokmunky.livejournal.com]

I have at least 6 active addresses, a bunch that are recently inactive.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes. I have inactive and ones that forward to others in the list, so I didn't mention them.

nope!

[kuroshii.livejournal.com]

lessee here. i have...

TWO at yahoo (one for fun, and one with my real name for writing and other biz)
one at my current ISP that i almost never use anymore.
one at gmail that i'm slowly using more
one at Ay Oh Hell leftover from when they were my ISP (they let you keep your email now, you just have to go on the web to use it) that i still use for alumni stuff.
one from the company that cuts my paychecks, and another from the company where i'm actually doing work.

...that's seven.

Re: nope!

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

OK, so I'm not out of the ordinary. That's always comforting, you know?

Re: nope!

[kuroshii.livejournal.com]

i hesitate to say that you are getting more ordinary (in this regard at least) with each passing month. ;)

[gilana]

Hmmm.
postdiluvian and porklips are the same machine, so that's really one. Then I have gmail, fastmail.fm, a Gillette account... I think I still have an Aquent account although I forget the login, and I can think of accounts on two other friends' machines that I never use. Oh, and Yahoo. That's seven, although only three that I use regularly.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Asknomi and my_real_name are actually clones of each other, but the e-mail addresses go to different mailboxes, so I count them as two.

I'm comforted by the fact that I'm not alone in this multiple-address thing.

[rhysara.livejournal.com]

I also have 6

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

That seems to be about the average number, among my friends. This makes me feel a lot better.

[llennhoff.livejournal.com]

Real accounts: 3 personal, 2 work (one a tech support group). 2 of the personal ones I check all the time, the third is a gmail account I've never given out and rarely check

Clones and autofeeder: 1 alum account, 2 aliases (one address automatically sends to both ME and me, other is former company account (same company, but now has different name).

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Wow. Lots of addresses, indeed.

[csbermack.livejournal.com]

Huh. Maybe I'm wierd for just having two, one for work and one for everythnig else. Oh, I guess I have a third that's somewhat anonymous that I reply from, but it forwards to my main account for reading.

It would drive me nuts to have to check a bunch of different accounts to get mail, and I'm always confused trying to remember what address to use to send you mail.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

All of my various POP accounts download into the same place on my laptop (though sorted, to some extent, by topic/subject), so I don't have to check many different accounts. Before I set it up this way, I only used 1 or 2 addresses, due to the annoyance you mention, having to check multiple places to get all my mail.

[norda.livejournal.com]

No, you're not freakish. I just counted, and I have seven. And only one of them is attached to my domain, and not to a Web-bsed service [Yahoo, GMail, etc.] Each has its purpose.

[jenwrites.livejournal.com]

Only six? I have

- one at world.std.com
- one at hotmail.com
- three at jenniferpelland.com
- three at siubhan.com
- one at work

I used to have more, but I pared back.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Cool. And it's nice to know you also maintain a World address still (despite World's many, many issues).

[jenwrites.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty much just keeping them for the FTP server at this point. It's my off-site fiction backup. Every time I work on something, I FTP it up there so that if the house burns down, my story is somewhere else.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that makes sense.

We keep mine active mostly for the multitude of US dialup numbers -- it's how we connect to the Internet while at my mother-in-law's.

[ianrandalstrock.livejournal.com]

You do realize, of course, that all of us folks reinforcing your state of being doesn't necessarily make you normal. Does your cousin have an lj account? We made all of us make up the weird minority.

Having said that, I've got three separate addresses I check daily, and at least five distinct addresses that forward to one of the three, for various businesses and projects. We're all odd together .

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Well, yes. You are correct. And to my knowledge, my cousin does not have an LJ (though for all I know she does). I'm still comforted, however, knowing that I am not alone in my hyper-connectedness.

[ianrandalstrock.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, not alone. Not alone is good. Normal, maybe not, but not alone, definitely.

[byrne.livejournal.com]

I have eight, only one of which is rarely used. I say you're normal.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Uh...sweetie? You're calling me normal. That happens so amazingly rarely. :-)

But it's comforting to know you think so.

[tygerseye.livejournal.com]

Okay the really freaky thing about this post is that I emailed you something a few hours ago in reference to that little spoiler we were discussing and asked you which email address I should be using for you during the day if it's not TP related. I emailed it to the TO addy and the asknomi addy because those are the only two I have!

Want the snippet now? Where do I send it? LOL

[tygerseye.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I have seven, four of which I check regularly and the other three I check a couple of times a week. Heh. With all of my co-writers and such, maybe we should get into how many IM screen names I have. Or how many LJs. LOL

You're definitely not alone.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Hee! I got it, and have responded, even. Thanks again so much!

(and you sent 2 copies to my asknomi address and none to my TP. But, eh. Because they all end up in the same box)

[tygerseye.livejournal.com]

Um. That was a test. Yeah. And you passed. *shifty eyes*

[tru2myart.livejournal.com]

In this day and age I'd say that's definitely not unheard of or odd. These are the days of people having multiple businesses and hobbies as well as groups of personal friends or family that for reasons of importance need to be kept separated. It's not unthinkable to have six. I have two myself but have seriously considered more.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Cool. Yeah, I use them for various functions or groups or whatever. And my work addresses stay for work stuff.

[eal.livejournal.com]

Um, seven. You missed one.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Right. Good point. It's so new, I forgot about it.

Also left off the other two that forward, the gmail and the yahoo addresses.

About One Hundred and Eighty

[marsgov.livejournal.com]

I have about 180 email addresses, and I add more all the time.

Any time a business or a conference asks me for an email address, I generate one just for them. I add it to my domain, and I can shut it off if they misbehave. I can also tell who it is that misbehaves by loking at the "To:" address, because each one is unique.

For example, Microcenter Warehouse not only sent me spam, but let the email address leak out, presumeably via a virus, to more disgusting spammers. I turned it off.

I may have to turn off the address that Livejournal currently uses and replace it, since it has attracted spam.

One of the things I said at Cluecon during my impromptu talk is that I one day hope to have hundreds of phone numbers, too. It's in fact fairly easy to do...

Re: About One Hundred and Eighty

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Fascinating. Do you have them all filter into one (or a couple) of mailboxes, or do you have a separate mailbox for each address?

Re: About One Hundred and Eighty

[marsgov.livejournal.com]

About half are personal and half are for work, and I maintain just two mailboxes, both on the same system.

The system is a bit complex, as you might imagine, but in the end I have a very nice system that gives me privacy and control. Oh, and if I fill out a form that asks for my snail mail address, I give 'em a room number that corresponds to the email address... so I can tell who's been naughty and sold my address.

Re: About One Hundred and Eighty

[angwantibo.livejournal.com]

The list is looking good. We've overlooked 1 relative, but that's the only change so far.

[dianora2.livejournal.com]

I have 5 that I use regularly and 2 or 3 others that exist I but never bother to use. I don't think you're weird. But then, I think we are the minority. :)

[pressburger.livejournal.com]

I have so many email addresses it's ridiculous. I don't even know how many. It's just part of our life today.

[sorek.livejournal.com]

lessee...at my worst I had:

1) my work address, this is the one I used for 95% of stuff
2) my dialup account's that I keep even though I now have broadband, address. I used this as my "throwaway" account because the spam filters were so inadequate it seemed useless unless you were using outlook 2003 or thunderbird with the inteligent spam filters that you know, actually filtered AND MOVED spam to a spam folder.
3) my broadband account's address. Looked at it less than six times...don't remember the password and haven't opened it since I rebuilt my machine...I guess I should try to find the password, huh.
4) my yahoo address. I still like yahoo as a free account over gmail or hotmail. I actually use this account for storing stuff I might need on the road as I know I can access it from "anywere"
5) a "sub-account" I used when I was trolling Amazon and didn't want lousy job offerers to have my "real account". I get 1 address from dialup along with 5 "free" addresses. Most of those "free" addresses are used by various family members, but I still had room for one or more "throwaway" addresses.

So basically I have 3 addresses I use on a regular basis, 1 sub-account I used for a while, and 1 account I can't even remember the password.

I guess you win!

[angwantibo.livejournal.com]

I used to have 4 but am down to 3 - work, home, webmaster.

I think I have others that I ignore.