That’s Not Your Email Address! That’s MY Email Address (A Story Four Years in the Making)
You’re working away one morning and someone calls you out of the blue. You don’t recognize the number, so it must be a telemarketer. Perhaps out of boredom, you answer. The person on the other end of the line is far stranger than a telemarketer.
It’s me. The OTHER you, but not from another universe. From another state, another town. I am the original owner of the gmail address you think you own, but don’t actually possess.
For four years, I have received your credit card bills, phone bills, and travel confirmations. So many times, I’ve considered resetting all your passwords, canceling your trips, your phone, and your credit cards. Please, I begged the internet gods, stop sending me this other person’s emails. I never wanted to know so much about a stranger’s life. I have received your overdue notices for bills. I have worried about you. Were you having financial trouble? Out of work? My understanding if your life was too intimate. I didn’t want to have to worry about you. I have my own problems.
I have many times wondered why you keep using an email address when, for years, you have not once received a confirmation email. In fact, I have many questions about your life that would be inappropriate for a stranger to ask. Why do you change your cell phone provider so often? When you took that emergency trip to Mississippi, was it for a funeral? Did you ever find a job, or did you just stop looking? I’m guessing you must have, because this trip to a Florida resort is damned expensive. All we have in common in a name, but I know more about you than some of your friends probably do.
After all this time, a confirmation email comes in with all your contact details. You live in Macon, Georgia and now I have your phone number. This is finally a way to reach you that doesn’t involve my own address!
This is it. The holy grail! I’ve dreamed about this moment.
Nervously, I pick up my phone and punch in the number. I think about what I will say if I get a person, and what I will say if I get shunted to voice mail. If our positions were reversed, you would get voice mail. But no, you answer. You have exactly the southern accent I expected. Of course you think I’m a telemarketer, because I say:
“Hello? My name is Jeremy Tolbert. Are you Jeremy Tolbert?”
Confusion occurs. The connection is bad. But eventually I convince you, by referring to the latest email, that I am in fact Jeremy Tolbert and I have been receiving your email.
“That’s weird,” you say. “My email is [name+numbers]@[otherprovider].com”
I don’t ask you how the hell you type in my email address over and over again if that’s your address. I just let you know that I’ll forward you the resort confirmation there so you can have it. We laugh, and wish each other to have a good day. I hang up.
Like most things you spend so much time dreaming about, the actual encounter is a letdown. I still want to know why you have continuously used the wrong email address for four years. I guess now I have a way to ask you. The only question that matters now is… should I?

4 Responses to “That’s Not Your Email Address! That’s MY Email Address (A Story Four Years in the Making)”
Brian Smith
You’re not going to believe it, but I have had a similar experience before. At least eight times, so I haven’t attempted to make phone contact. I do forward the defense attorney’s legal communications and sometimes the meth head’s relationship drama when it seems like it might help with sobriety.
Jeremiah Tolbert
No way! An exotic name like yours? What are the odds!
gordsellar
Didn’t Tina Connolly have a similar experience? Her doppelgänger (if it was her) was in the U.K., though.
Jeremiah Tolbert
I don’t know! There’s a club forming about this in Facebook!