Ok so the gist of the problem is I have way too many email addresses.

I've got multiple addresses associated with various domains, mostly because for a while that seemed like a good way to prevent spam - I'd use nameofsite@mydomain.com so I'd know if I started getting third party emails. This has become 1. too hard to keep track of and 2. not that necessary b/c most sites these days have an opt out and I'm not getting spammed as the result of signing up for services anymore.

On top of that I have a POP account from before I had my own websites which has been my personal address for years. I also have a yahoo account that I use for some things. I've been experimenting with yahoo's premium service, which lets me read and write mail from my other POP accounts. This is pretty close to an ideal situation since I can see evertyhing in one place and it's not stuck on one machine. The problem is that the main pop account I use has too tight security to allow yahoo to grab it. It's a pain to have to read and write mail in more that one place. So...I'm looking to maybe choose a new main email address that I can use inside yahoo.

Another feature of yahoo premium is the ability to create throw-away emails, like I can do with my own domains. I'm considering having one of the throw-aways be the email I use to sign up for websites. Don't you sort of hate that sites use your email address as your login name though?

I'm thinking it might make sense for my main address to be neither a web-based email like yahoo or gmail nor even one of my domains because it allows me to use it for both people who know me and people who don't. Then again, there are times I want to give an address out that does identify me, e.g. one of the domains - or even the yahoo address which by default is also my yahoo IM. This is what has been driving me crazy. Do I want my name in my email address or not??

I've also been trying out bluebottle.com - they have a trusted delivery model where people that email me have to verify they are a human being. I'm reluctant to take it as my main email because I wonder 1. will people be turned off by the verification? and 2. is the company stable enough that my email address will stay around? The good thing about bluebottle is that I can read and write emails for it inside the yahoo premium account. I'm leaning towards it being my primary email address.

What I really want to do is narrow down to maybe 3 email addresses. One for people who know me (bluebottle?) one for people who don't (yahoo?) and one throwaway.

Any advise is appreciated. Thanks!