Awkward personal moments

[azurelunatic]

So Nora and I were chatting away and the topic of older couples sharing an email address came up. I scrabbled around for an (in)appropriately awkward and personal comparison.

"Would you rather share a personal primary email address or poop in front of them?"

Now in long-term cohabiting relationships with one bathroom, this is eventually going to happen. Camping trips. Wacky misunderstandings. Medical emergencies or the like.

Now I have stopped thinking about married-type relationships and started thinking about all the random other people in my life and applying this test.

Mortal enemy? Poop. Just once, and there's a limited amount of griefable material in poop. Email is unlimited.

Parents? Poop. Been there, done that.

Comments

[silverflight8]

Excretion, though good grief, one should not have to make these decisions! *laughs nervously*

[azurelunatic]

One should not! And yet there are people who don't see why sharing a personal primary email address is any kind of a big deal. Thus the search for an inappropriately appropriate comparison.

[silverflight8]

It *is* reading someone's mail. Literally. And I like my correspondence, which is usually about books and bills and random other conversation from godknowswhat, to be private. It's irrational.

[azurelunatic]

I find it entirely reasonable, if not responsive to argument. It's one of the things you (and I) have marked as personal and private beyond even the interests of a partner. I suspect some people who are ok sharing email might balk at letting a husband root around in a purse, for example.

[vass]

My theory about opposite sex couples who share an email address: that it's more likely to occur when the woman is the social secretary for the couple - for example, it's her job to remember when his mother's birthday is, and his mother will be angry with her if he forgets. She'd probably be expected to poop for him if this was physically possible. After all, he can't be expected to manage these things, he's a busy, important man!

But I've seen less unequal couples who had separate email addresses, but had each other's passwords and full permission to log in at any time. Where would that fit into the poop comparison? I'm imagining that they don't walk in and out of the bathroom while it's in use, but the door has a huge glass window in it, and they carry on conversations through it?

To answer your question, of course I'd rather poop than share my personal primary email address with anyone, but I'm really warming up to a life of celibacy after reading this post.

[azurelunatic]

Hah, that makes sense. And in the metaphor where the email box is equivalent to the postal mail drop, one manages postal mail privacy by just not opening (or opening, and then not fully reading) something intended for the eyes of the other party only. But email is ... a lot less easy to not-read. And not addressed in the same way, quite. And there's a lot of overhead-chatter.

My little sister and her ex-fiancé broke up after they attempted to be physically together at basically all times: not necessarily in the bathroom, but attempting to share all social engagements and interests. It's not that you need to keep secrets from or exclude the other party, just -- sometimes you kinda need to be able to be yourself, by yourself, for a bit. Utter introvert hell.

Leaving the door cracked?

[vass]

Ugh, I'm sorry for your sister and her ex. Definitely introvert hell.

I used to know someone who did the having each other's passwords thing with her then wife, for LJ as well as email, and after their extremely acrimonious breakup, neither of them changed their passwords. They just kept reading each other's email and flocked posts and getting furious at each other for reading the things that they'd left there in the hopes that they'd look. It was ghastly.

[azurelunatic]

That sort of breakup is why I don't share passwords in general. Everything is going fine until it's not.

(That being said, some legit things do require some sharing, but I would far prefer to do it through an administrative interface, not by passwords or hashed passwords.)

[wibbble]

elwinfortuna has root on our mail server. So do I, of course, as I set the fucker up the other week.

I have her mail password, but again, only because I created the record in the database with the hashed password in it. I don't think she has my mail password, but it hardly matters 'cause ROOT ON MAIL SERVER.

I'm not sure where, how, or if that fits into the poop analogy.

[azurelunatic]

Bathroom door locked, got key; could walk in; don't, unless it sounds like there's an actual Problem?

[silveradept]

Always poop. And I always feel rather annoyed that Sig. Other wants password access to things here and there, because Swyper, no Swiping when it comes to personal passwords. Tgat said, Sig. Other keeps accounts and passwords in a file that I do have e access to, because I'm occasionally doing things for us that need them. It's weird how that fits in, but then again, Sig. Oher is entirely okay with conversing from tbe toilet...

[sithjawa]

If a couple were sharing an email address, I would want to know before I emailed them and might be upset with them if they did not tell me, because they exposed my email intended to one recipient to reading by the other without my knowledge.

Also, it would make discussions of surprise gifts rather difficult.