Don’t you hate it when people give you the choice of two different e-mails? It raises all sorts of questions. Why do you need two e-mail addresses for the same purpose? Which one do you check more often? Is it going to choke on a 2MB JPG? Will it refuse a ZIP file? Most of all, why can’t you just PICK ONE?
Where’s that “things you can’t believe people care about” thread?
I for one only ever get that sort of statement when one address is clearly a work and the other is clearly a non-work one.
Having more than one email address is a way to avoid spam. I give my spam-sponge email address to websites, and my other email address to trusted people and in some rare cases - trusted websites.
But I never quote more than one of them if I’m telling someone what my email address is.
As it happens I have four email addresses (if you don’t count my work one, and potentially unlimited ones I can have from things I have accounts with)
I have one as part of my hosting a website ( @notails.com ) I have my main one ( @manx.net) My spam one ( also @manx.net) and my google one.
And I may or may not make my google one my main one, because it has the feature of being able to have whatever you want after a full stop and your name (myname.whateveriwanthere@google.com) which may prove useful for spam avoidance.
“Here, let me give you one of my cards. Now if you should ever want to call me, call me at this number. Don’t call me at that one, that’s the old one.”
I have one address for friends and important messages, one address for signing up for stuff online and stuff that would clutter up my inbox, and one that’s almost entirely- to use Lobsang’s term- a spam sponge.
I can’t think of a reason why I would send more than one of those at a time, however.
I have a spammy one, one for semi public use [like job applications, or certain email groups like my Lois McMaster Bujold fanlist, and one private one that goes to personal friends.
No, not really. It’s never occurred to me to be bothered by that. I can try to start, if you like.
epdowd@charlies.com is his main e-mail addy. 
I have one email for each of my online things like this board. Then I forward all them to one main account.
You really should, because it’s one of the biggest problems in modern society. 
Maybe I just see it a lot in my line of work. Neither address seems to be a work address in most cases. I don’t know if they’re just showing off that they have more than one e-mail address, or that they can’t decide which to use. I of course just pick one, but I’d rather they make the decision than me.
I have 4 gmails, two work emails and one home email. One’s for ebay, two are for online acquaintances and/or message boards, one’s for real life family and friends (this is my actual real home ISP email), and one’s for family and friends when I can’t access my home email. I don’t know why I have two work emails, they gave me two but I just use one.
Not a valid comparison. When I’m given two choices I assume both work. I have two emails myself both of which I check regularly.
Exactly this. I own projammer.com and set up emails for every website I deal with. Amazon, ebay, newegg at projammer.com. All forwarded to overlord. So when an address starts getting spam I know exactly where it came from.
Note: emails listed here don’t exist and were provided for example only.
There’s a difference between “I have several email addresses and give them out selectively” and “I have several email addresses, here they are, you choose which one to use for contacting me.” I do believe the OP is complaining about the latter.
I’ve never run into a situation like that, myself.