here's the deal

i was lucky when i snagged my email address - full name, easy to remember, not hard to mistake. or so i thought.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

let me introduce myself


my name is erica.

it's not particularly unique -  34th most popular in my year of birth, right above lindsey and lindsay (35 and 36, respectively) and somewhere below the jessicas and jennifers and heathers and tiffanys of the 1980s. my last name, also, is not particularly special in its generic ellis-islanded scandinavian origin. i'm not particularly surprised that i share this name with, well, hundreds of other ericas.

but.

when i graduated from undergrad and realized i'd need an adult email - no more wolf emails for erica! - i thought [firstname].[lastname]@gmail would be a great idea. and as a relatively early adopter of gmail, way back in early 2005, i got it. i claimed it, it is MINE.

sigh.

in my victory, i did not realize the repercussions of claiming this nomenclature from the masses of other ericas who might want to steal it. i did not realize i would force them to choose email addresses that would be SLIGHTLY different, with, say, an initial in the middle somewhere - an initial that, when typing quickly or scribbling on a mailing list, might be easily overlooked. 

you probably see where this is going.

so what happens when that carelessly scribbled middle a or e is left behind? that email, or that subscription, those invitations to parties and events, or that financial statement, goes straight to my inbox. over the years, i've been unintentionally stalking various other ericas from around the country - but because i'm the recipient of their mistaken email, i have no clue how to tell them. i have no choice but to live vicariously. accidentally.

it started with one other erica, and misdirected orbitz itineraries... and from there, i've identified at least 3 distinct other ericas from the assortment of emails. i've accidentally watched them get married, buy a house, have kids, save for kids' college funds. 

it's not my email, but it's my email account. when i can, i try to point out to the email senders that they have the wrong email address. in the wonders of modern gmail, though, once an email address has been introduced into an address book ecosystem... it is not removed easily. and the cycle continues.

my boyfriend has been encouraging me to blog about this accidentally vicarious hobby of mine for going on years now - and, well, it's just too tempting. and if it's been this fun for us to untangle the mystery of the other ericas, i can't keep this fun to myself.

other ericas out there, i'm sorry. but please, don't forget that middle initial.