Machines are Looking Out for My Best Interests

Currently I'm having a bit of trouble with my "home" email account. I'm using my Dartmouth alumni account for my non-work-related email,* and some of the email sent to me just disappears into the void. Not delivered, no bounce messages: just disappears.

I'm really bad at writing back to email, so when I don't respond, most people probably think it's me ignoring their mail and not that the message got lost on its way. Weirdly, this is an intermittent problem: sometimes if I don't get a message, it can be re-sent to me a few minutes later and arrive safely. I'm not sure of the extent of the problem: the only person who I'm sure is having trouble getting through to me is someone who I probably should not be emailing with. We sometimes write back and forth several times a day, so gaps in the conversation are pretty obvious.

Magical thinking leads me to believe that the mailserver is interfering on my behalf.


*Don't bother suggesting Gmail, as it doesn't meet my needs. I need free IMAP email. Gmail is POP. The pay version of Yahoo is not free, and it is POP. Comcast uses POP. I hate POP. Need IMAP. Not allowed to install qmail on my office computer.