It struck me tonight that there’s a period from about 1996-2004, roughly, where there are a significant number of people I spoke with on a fairly regular basis and felt that I knew rather well. I would not, however, recognize many of their names if I saw them. But show me their email addresses and it’s instant recognition.
I’m not sure if that’s really sad or mildly amusing. I’m going to choose the latter just because it makes me feel better about myself.
It helps that some of us have had the same email address since pretty much forever.