You stole my email

Hi Ben James,

My name is Ben James and you stole my email address.

Let me be explicit: a long time ago, I tried to sign up for Gmail. I typed in “ben.james@gmail.com” and it told me that the address was claimed. Specifically, it was claimed by you and your name.

There are many types of theft in this world. Last year I had my phone snatched in London, and although phone snatching is a cowardly crime, I admire the ingenuity of the thieves. They have perfected the grab, the get-away, the GPS blocking, the mid market parlay. There is something similar to be said about the drug smugglers who make fibreglass submarines in South America and sail across the Atlantic - you have to respect the hustle. Unfortunately, this is not the type of theft you are peddling, for you demonstrated no ingenuity in stealing my email.

There is another type of theft that is much graver, and that is the theft of possibility. The act not of taking, but denying. This type is more sinister, because the snatching of a future that was never promised can go virtually undetected. The universe rolls on sleepily, unaware of the parallel branch that was just hacked off the trunk. This, unfortunately, is the type of theft in which you are implicated.

You might have thought that this day would never come - but you are trying to sneak daylight past a rooster. Every day I log into my inbox with a familiar sense of unease. This is not something I can fix with a choccy milk. I spent my peak years of neuroplasticity lumbering about in cyberspace using broken machinery - wearing blurry goggles, pulling creaky levers. Carl Jung said that “Loneliness does not come from having no people around you, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to you,” and let me be the first to tell you that communicating through a temu gmail account is as Jungian as it gets.

Now obviously I don’t actually hate you - we are, of course, like brothers. This is brotherly love. When I lie awake at night cursing you, I make it explicitly clear to the Big Guy that I’m only joshing. Deadass I would never hex my hombre. We have been walking cosmically alongside each other our whole lives.

What will happen next? It does not look good. They have not solved email addresses, but they are still making new people. Each dude will get dealt a progressively worse hand. I am writing you an email but at this point, the next Ben James is likely screwing together a tomahawk missile for the both of us.

Anyways, I wondered if you wanted to get dinner sometime. I can come to your house, anywhere in the world, and cook you a risotto. (This is a serious offer).