Email & Infidelity

So I broke up with my Gmail account. Things had been rocky for a little while, and we were rarely connecting; but they had never been this bad. In my defence, my Gmail account was sensitive and didn’t like CAPS; It reminded me of this everyday when logging in. Despite our many years together, I was still being asked to confirm that I had the right address. In truth, after re-entering my password several times, I started to question why I even bothered.

Once I was reluctantly granted access to my inbox, I could feel the tension mount at my fingertips. Gmail refused to open any of my attachments and took it’s time to empty the trash. It apologised, blaming the delay on my poor internet connection, but I knew it had nothing to do with the internet connection. Gmail was corrupting my incoming messages for weeks. It had an attitude problem and I was well over the ‘wifi’ excuses.

It wasn’t long before an argument started. I screamed expletives at the screen, while Gmail gave me the silent treatment, appearing offline. Then I began to upload extremely large files, giving it the finger, so Gmail crashed. We called each other names, firing insults back and forth like children.

I started out by making fun of its initial, “I bet you the G stands for goofy, or better yet Glob! Since you’re so fat, lazy and slow. I guess I should call you Globmail, or how about Mr. Gsnail – because you’re no longer a mailbox but a snailbox.”

A few moments passed before it managed a comeback. ‘Temporary error (505)’ It bleeps. ‘Chris-piss, in other words’ Bleeping again. Our session timed out.

Several Hours Later

It was 3am before I sat down with my laptop again; I logged into my account first time, without any trouble or delay. My inbox was generally calm at this hour of the morning, so we decided to work through our unresolved issues from earlier. Gmail explained why it was acting out.

‘You’ve been using another email provider haven’t you? I’ve heard it’s hot. Don’t try to deny it.’ It bleeped.

‘That’s what this is about? So what if I am. I’m a user by nature.’ I typed. ‘Maybe you can’t handle all of my mail.’

With this Gmail shut down, sobbed, and didn’t bleep at all. We sat in silence for a moment. I avoided eye contact by staring at the icons on my desktop, the screen dimmed.

‘It’s hotmail that your using isn’t it? That dirty little mailbox! I hope you end up with a virus, that’ll teach you.’ Gmail bleeped.

‘It’s nothing serious. I only use hotmail as a back up address anyway, all of my trash goes there: junk mail, crappy subscriptions and spam!’ I insist, reinforcing with an exclamation mark. ‘I didn’t want you to have to deal with any of that stuff. You’re my important email account’

Gmail maximised, instantly refreshing it’s screen.

‘Why don’t you just put me down as your only email address, for all of that stuff? I can do it, It’s my job you know. From now on I’d like us to be monogamous. I want to handle all of your mail, the serious stuff and the junk. I can help you filter through it all. Gmail is good like that.’

I agreed to consolidate, compile and direct all of my mail to the one address; Gmail was pleased. It flashed and bleeped simultaneously. Hotmail’s wasn’t really that crash hot anyway. We talked about our future together; how we planned to open larger and larger attachments. By midnight we were organising my Google calendar. Gmail believed we could be far more productive in the coming year, and I agreed. I had been a mail cheat, but together we were overcoming my infidelity. For awhile there our emails had never been better.

Meanwhile, my unused hotmail account was left alone to manage the mountains of unopened spam cluttering it’s inbox: pestering newsletters, chain mail and deal of the day sites continued to challenge it’s storage capacity on a daily basis. When hotmail discovered what was going on it was understandably livid. Admittedly, my behaviour had been misleading; Setting up ninemsn as my homepage gave hotmail the false impression that I would eventually leave Gmail for good.

As a security measure, I only ever provided hotmail with limited access to my personal information. Additionally, I go out of my way to avoid the ninemsn page. It does make me feel a little guilty, but it’s just an email address for Christ’s sake.

Twelve Months On

For Christmas, I was lucky enough to receive a Macbook Pro, and introduced to it’s numerous applications. One in particular caught my attention. At first glance, it was both an attractive and impressive concept. It promised to open up my storage capacity and allow access through all of my devices, wirelessly. It was called iCloud, and it was fancy. I was propositioned with a new email address right there and then:chrisbrailey@icloud.com. I’m not going to lie, I was excited about the prospect of my mail living in a cloud, even though it kind of always did. iCloud’s persuasiveness and slick design had won me over, despite it’s lack of experience with mail.

Then we started working together. At first, it was just a few emails back and forth with new clients that weren’t familiar with my Gmail account. However, just as those projects began to flourish, so too did my relationship with iCloud. I realised just how close we’d gotten when a girl at a bar asked me for my email. Without hesitation, I gave her my iCloud address. At first, it felt a little weird. Did this mean we were going steady? If I had any doubt it was certainly put to rest when I received my first non-work related email: my iPhone lit up, and made a new sound that I’d never even heard before. I guess you could say it was blushing.

I forwarded my new address on to everybody I knew. The update wasn’t exactly well received. For a while there, I tolerated my fair share of criticism from friends and colleges who couldn’t believe I’d made the switch. They loved Gmail, and saw no reason to change; despite the fact Gmail was planning to crush your privacy by opening it’s doors to ads, scammers, and strangers who didn’t even have your address! Gmail was practically going to start selling off my details behind my back. I guess it never really got over the whole hotmail fling.

Months flew by before Gmail realised it’s role had minimized; It gradually began to manage fewer important messages and an increased volume of unopened spam. My iPhone was happy that I’d tied the knot with iCloud, and held an integrated celebration for us on iTunes. So I’m a mail cheat again, but this time it’s different; iCloud may even be the one.